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angelofthenight · 2 years ago

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Closer To God Pt.1

(John Doe x Fem!Reader) Part 2

Warnings: Yandere, Innocent!Reader, Dark themes, Language (+ use of cvnt and c0ck), Religious themes/mentions, Sexual themes/context, Sexual sadism, Stalking, Jealousy/Possessiveness, Obsession, Murder/Torture, Ignoring your instincts, Violence/Blood/Gore, Unwanted/Non-Con touching, Kidnapping

Word Count: 5.6k

( A/N: I literally hate Kevin Spacey sm but I love John Doe as a character and thought he would be a terrifying yet interesting yandere )

“You eating lunch today, John?”

John Doe looked up from his paperwork to see your head peeking over the cubicle with a soft smile planted on your delicate lips.

“I’m not sure yet.” He answered simply.

You jabbed a thumb over your shoulder. “I’m going to pick up some pierogies from that new diner down the road. Want me to bring you anything?” You asked kindly, the gentle light in your eyes making his steady heart rate skip multiple beats.

You always had that effect on him, from waking him up on his most tired days to warming his desolated chest like a burst of fire in a freezing cabin stuck in the middle of a harsh winter. It still was so strange to him.

From the first moment he laid eyes on you on the subway train, something changed in him. There was just something about you. And he had no idea what. At first, he thought the reason why you stood out to him so much was perhaps because you were something that needed to be disposed of, that God was signaling that you were the most sinful of all.

So he began to stalk you, to follow you through every street and into every building, to peek through any crack into your home. He tried to pinpoint your sins. But he couldn’t find any.

You were too humble and shy to be prideful. You were too generous to be greedy. You had too much abstinence to be gluttonous, too much perseverance to be a sloth. You were too content and grateful and happy with your life for envy. You were a naturally joyful person, rarely ever getting wrathful and having lots of self control. And as far as John could see, you never seeked out sex. Instead, you kept your lust to yourself and your own hand. Those were the nights John felt the need to stay and watch you a little longer.

He almost didn’t believe it. In this shitty, soul-draining city how could someone like you live so wholesomely. John was a natural pessimist, he almost didn’t accept that you were actually a genuinely good person and that behind closed doors you never revealed any vile part of yourself. If he judged you on your worst day it would probably just be you honking at someone in traffic or not thanking your coffee barista on a bad morning. Your actions in life could be mistaken as truly biblical.

It was as if you were the embodiment of the seven heavenly virtues, the opposite of the seven deadly sins. You weren’t human, you couldn’t have been. There was a sinner in everyone. But not you.

You were an angel. Divinity personified, goodness materialized, the incarnation of sanctity, the epitome of grace, a model of holiness, the essence of purity; a blessed being. An earthbound seraph trapped within the confinement of a human body. A very, very lovely body.

That was the reason why you had caught his eye so easily on that subway train that one gloomy, rainy morning. It was as if you were radiating a golden light off of you, rays of your ethereal aura shooting through his barren chest making him… feel things. Things that were foreign to him. Things that seemed to act up most when you were around, or when you simply just visited his mind.

This was a dangerous and unforgivably cruel world that you lived in, he had to protect you. He had to. No one else could ever comprehend how rare you were, how fragile you were, how easy it would be to grab your dainty little wrist and snap it like a twig.

God had sent you to him for a reason. You needed him. But far, far tucked beneath his delusions and obsessions, he just wanted you. All of you, everything you had to offer or didn’t realize you even had. He had to have you. No matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice. He had to have you, all for himself.

So he had taken the unneeded job at your place of work. It was a pathetic little office desk job but you seemed to be positively at peace with it. To most, it may seem like it was by pure chance that you two were desk neighbors but to John it was fate. Fate crafted by the hands of the Father himself.

He got to see you, up close, every single day. And sooner than later, due to your lighthearted sociable nature, he got to talk with you every single day. Even though he always responded very dryly with uninteresting answers, he took in every little thing you would say to him. Inhaling it and mentally digesting it, later writing it all down as if he was trying to write your biography.

Unbeknownst to him, you never paid him much mind. He was just your desk neighbor, the man on the other side of the cubicle. You hadn’t even noticed his daily gloves or bandaged fingers. But you still liked your office neighbor. For so long that chair was empty which left you feeling more isolated and your days started to blend together. But now you had someone to briefly converse with to pass the time, and if you started to get tired or lonely all you had to do was peek over the divider for some company.

You had no idea you brought out the worst sins in him.

He was greedy with you, wanting you all to himself with no else being allowed to interact, look, touch, or even think about you. He was envious of the men you clearly liked socializing with and who made you laugh, knowing he could never be like them so casually. He was wrathful when anybody had the disgusting audacity to talk to you in such a discourteous or graceless manner, especially the regional manager’s insolence with you.

And he was filled with lust more times than he’d like to admit, essentially after every encounter. He just couldn’t fight it. Not with the way your intoxicating eyes would look down at him when you would stand to peer over the cubicle. Your diaphanous lips spreading into a smile meant for his eyes only. Your voice like warm honey oozing down into his ears causing tingles to erupt beneath his skin. The skin exposed on your body appearing so soft he was close to reaching out to caress it occasionally. Your legs, your thighs, your hips, your waist, your breasts, your neck, your hair, your hands, it all drove him wild. Even the scent of you straight waves of heat down to his pelvis.

And his sinful lust was at its most carnivorous when he would hide in your walls and watch through the holes he secretly made as you laid in your bed, your head thrown back with one hand gripping the sheets and one hand buried past your clit.

And as John intently watched you pleasure yourself without your awareness, it was times like these when John would wonder what you would look like underneath him, chest to chest and mouth to mouth and genital to genital.

He would wonder what those lustrous eyes of yours would look like filling up with thick tears. How those elegant lips would look trembling or even being widened as he would shove his tongue down your throat. How your voice would sound as a sloppy mess of dirty moans and screams of pain. How your naked skin would feel against his own and how your skin would feel if he gripped onto it hard; how fast your skin would bruise.

How your legs would feel wrapped around him or even trying to fight him off. How your bare breasts would feel squished against his hairy chest or trapped in his groping hands. How your neck would feel tightly within his hand as he squeezed, or being bitten by his fake teeth. Your hair tangled in his printless fingers, tugging on the locks. Your hands tied together above your head with red silk, unable to wiggle out of them. How your juicy thighs would feel in his kneading hands or pressing into the sides of his face as he devoured you.

And how your cunt would feel in his fingers, on his tongue, and around his cock. And how it would react to everything he wanted to do to it. And he couldn’t help but wonder what scents he would discover out of all this, especially what your climax would smell like, and your tears… and maybe your blood.

“That’s alright. Don’t worry ‘bout me.” John responded easily to your offer, a ghost of a smile pricking upon his lips.

You nodded in a polite way, a caring expression engraved in your features, before stepping out of your area and walking down the hall in pursuit of the elevator. His eyes followed your form as if gravity wouldn’t allow his pupils to stray from you. Now everyday most days he would follow you to wherever you’d go for lunch or your break or an errand, but today he was feeling trustful of you and your abilities to make it back to him safely. Just as you would under his secret supervision.

It was over two hours, a little longer than your typical lunch runs, when you had finally returned to the office and took a seat at your desk. He noted your mood was more upbeat than before you left. You weren’t very far into your meal before your desk phone rang, you picking it up as soon as you could. “Hello, (Y/n) (L/n) speaking. How can I help you?” You asked with a merry warmness to your naturally cordial voice. Quite literally heaven teasing his ears every time John got to hear you.

However, his eavesdropping created a dark atmosphere around him as he heard you giddily giggle from the other side of the cubicle, hearing you say something among the lines of “I gave you this number for emergencies only”. He could hear your bright smile.

You whispered a string of ‘bye’s in a joyful, flustered manner before placing the phone back down. John waited a few beats before speaking up to you. “Is that clingy customer bothering you again?” He asked with a soft monotone, already knowing the answer.

John knew you were absentmindedly shaking your head despite the wall concealing your reaction. “Oh, no. That guy doesn’t call me anymore.” You replied back. Perhaps because the customer who repeatedly called you with unpalatable flirtatious advances, despite your repetitive polite declining and lack of interest, was now rotting away inside a sewn up mattress; his own severed penis shoved down his own throat.

“I just ran into an old friend at the diner. We’re gonna start catching up.” You said with a twinge of gleefulness in your undertone. He could still hear your smile. He hadn’t noticed the pen snapping within his hand until he felt the ink drip down his palm.

Of course the one time he didn’t look after you, someone had stolen your mind and infected it. He was running out of time, out of time to make you his. The corrupt world was slowly closing in on you and you hadn’t a clue. The devilish sinners that so casually walked the streets were going to taint you, destroy you and your saintly innocence if he didn’t do something.

You were the bright and shining sun, the light in the distance of John’s darkness. And just like anybody would do, he knew he had to get to that light before it potentially went out.

But he needed to be patient. Perhaps you wouldn’t be so oblivious and naive this time and you’d see yourself how much of a scumbag that old friend truly was. The next day at work everything was seemingly normal, and the day after was the same as well. John felt his deranged worries minimize. That was until the very next day.

“Hey, John?” You meekly said as your head popped up over the edge of the cubicle. John had turned to you to face your kindly apologetic expression. “Sorry to bother you but do you happen to know if Ivy's Table is a fancy restaurant or a casual one?” You asked with a cutely confused tone of voice. Well, John would have fonded over your cute tone if your question hadn’t made his pulse twitch.

“What do you mean?” He asked in that gentle stoic tone of his own voice. A tone that to you was just soft and gently relaxed, but to others it was creepily emotionless. But that was just how you saw him through your unintentional rose colored glasses, that he was just a zen man with soft facial expressions. If only your poor soul knew…

A smile you tried to fight stretched across your face in excitement. “I have a date tonight,” you bit your lip in nervousness, “but I’m not sure if the restaurant we’re going to is fancy or not. I don’t know how nice I should dress.”

A date? A fucking date?

How could you let yourself be manipulated and brainwashed into such a custom with a nugatory sleazebag. No, it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault, John could never bring himself to blame you for your innocent righteousness and guilelessness. You couldn’t help your own gullibleness and how easily you trusted the deceiving barbarians around you. That was why he had devoted himself to protecting you from this vile society in the first place.

But he had failed to preserve you, you proving to not be able to fend for yourself and falling for the very first trap aimed at you the single day he had not been there for you. He had to correct his mistake. He couldn’t let whatever savage you considered an old friend and now potential suitor get their filthy hands on you. He wanted to slam his forehead down onto a hammer when the mere thought of you within the grasp of anyone other than himself cursed his mind.

He was not going to allow that. He would rather burn his beloved bible with a flamethrower than see that happen; he would rather explode the world around him than see that happen.

But he gave you a truthful answer. “I think it’s more on the formal side.” Your eyes lit up, softly shaking your head as confirmation. “Ok, thank you!” Then you dipped back behind the wall, leaving John as his body temperature raised and an unsteady, inconsistent breathing pattern huffed through his nose. His fists tightened on his desk, knuckles turning white and blue veins bulging beneath his pale skin.

The very next day you had showed up to work with an obvious shifted and drained mood. A solemn frown took the place of your ebullient grin. A gloomy silence in your throat rather than the bubbly morning greetings to your coworkers. Your lively, upbeat eyes were replaced with a tired gaze, pink puffiness circling them. You were so downcasted and crestfallen, you didn’t even greet John with your daily “good morning”.

Part of him was bitter over your reaction, not knowing how you could care so much about some wicked waste of a human. But a stronger part of him had spread a smug smile across his face over the sound of your light sniffles. A very smug one.

John smoothly rolled his chair around the cubicle to enter your space, for the first time ever. You were hunched over your desk with one hand rubbing over both your eyes. “Is everything alright?” John’s voice softly reached your ears, making you turn to see him. “Yeah, yeah.” You instinctively answered. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I figure the date didn’t go well?” He asked.

Your rare frown deepened as your eyes casted down to the carpeted floor. “No. The date didn’t even happen. He never showed and left me waiting there for hours. I’ve called him seventeen times and he never answers.” You pursed your lips that threatened to quiver together, slightly shaking your head. “But this is just… so unlike him. He’s not that kind of person at all. We were really close all four years of highschool since we had the same friend group. And he was a very anxious guy so he was always earlier than on time with anything he did, especially dates.” You finally looked up towards John, revealing the gloss in your eyes. “Has he really changed that much over the years and only asked me on a date for some narcissistic joke?”

Those eyes. Those eyes of yours were still caged within the barbed wire of his desire, his unwavering and unhealthy desire. And he knew he would set fire to the world around him just to have you. “He probably recognized the gap between your status’ as humans and knew his place.” John spoke with a masked consoling tone.

Your heavy frown relaxed and softened, not from comfort though. Quite the opposite. Sudden unsettlement weighed over you from how he said those words. You had nothing but good things to say about your desk neighbor John and you never once felt uncomfortable around the man or felt unsafe in his presence. But just now, for the first time ever, you felt something pinch in you. And it wasn’t a good feeling.

It felt like the quietest little siren blaring off in your head, flashing red. You felt as if someone had opened a window and a cold breeze just blew onto your back and neck, hollow chills skidding down your spine and your shoulders feeling colder.

The worst mistake you ever made was brushing off that feeling.

The end of the day had come to end the shifts of everyone who left in the office, dusk about to creep up to fade through the sky as the sun was setting. No matter how much of a headstart you got, you always ended up being the last one to pack up all your materials and leave. Your coworkers around you began leaving one by one, bidding you amicable goodbye’s and goodnight’s and an occasional “see you tomorrow”. If only they knew they wouldn’t see you tomorrow.

You shoved the last of your stuff you needed at home into your bag before rising to your tired feet, your droopy eyes glancing out the big window in the office to see dusk fading into the sky to create beautiful hues. It was a beautiful site, especially from the view of your office on one of the higher levels of the building. And after every shift you would admire the twilight landscape with a pleasant sense of cherishing the simple beautiful things in life. But tonight was different. And you didn’t know what it was, but something didn’t feel right.

The dark sky only gave you a sinking and haunting feeling, an intuition tempting you to not leave the building on this dark night. But you made another stupid decision and told yourself your mood was only disquiet because of your failed date yesterday. So you continued your end-of-shift routine and moved yourself in pursuit of punching your little card to clock out. You rounded the corner only to jump at the sight of John just finishing clocking out.

You forced a neighborly, benign chuckle past your uneasiness. “Oh, John, you scared me. I thought you went home already.” You said, trying to steady your frail voice. John slowly looked over to you and shrugged, motioning towards the briefcase in his hand. “I had a few documents I needed to print out.”

You slightly nodded and once he moved out of the way you shoved your card into the small machine to stamp the time and date on your card. You focused on restraining the shake in your hands as you felt John’s eyes still on you.

“Your friend.” John spoke up from beside you. “His name wouldn’t happen to be Doug Hopper, would it?” Your eyes widened and you snapped your head to him. “It… is, actually. You know him?” John faintly nodded. “He’s my neighbor. You could come by quickly to see him.”

That siren went off in your head again, the red flashes practically blinding your vision.

But your eagerness to see Doug was too strong, and that was how you found yourself now following John down the hall of a dark and coarse apartment building. Your nerves had amplified a disturbing amount since you were in the office building and that was when you had begun to heavily regret coming here, feeling as if you had no escape. You didn’t walk too far behind John but you also didn’t get too close to him. He finally led you to a door, stopping in front of it and briefly turning to you.

You wanted to leave, you wanted to turn around and run as fast as you could. Your heart was pumping so fast you feared it may burst apart. And the fact was you were so absorbed in your own anxious apprehension that you didn’t even think about what you would say to Doug. Because that became the least of your worries.

You watched as John pulled out a key from his back pocket and plugged it into the doorknob, now all the alarms in your body and conscience were going off like you were stuck in a room with multiple alarm clocks intensely going off. And this time you didn’t have the strength to ignore them. “John. I…” You wrapped your arms around yourself tightly, a sick nausea sinking into your stomach. “I don’t know about this. I think I’m just gonna go home. It’s late anyway.” You spoke in a meek, fearful voice as your eyes casted down.

Your pupils looked up to get John’s response. He only smugly smiled as he unlocked the door, turning the knob all the slightest. “Don’t you trust me?” He asked with a complacent tone lacing through his dry voice that used to comfort you but now only brought disquietude. He, without receiving your answer or confirmation, pushed the door the rest of the way open.

You had so many questions that desperately needed to be answered, like why he had a key and why he was just going to waltz in unannounced. But it was as if your fear had rendered you mute, stealing all words from your throat and leaving behind a thick lump you just couldn’t swallow away.

He stood at the door frame, waiting for you to go in first. Which you hesitantly and foolishly did. You slowly walked into the apartment, it would’ve been pitch black dark if it wasn’t for the open door at the end of the hall that allowed the light from its room to emit a glow. You carefully moved down the hall, your heart pounding and your head beginning to feel dazed, your eyes locked on that open room.

When you reached the doorway of the lit up bathroom, your shaking small-pupiled eyes caved in on the bathtub on the other side of the room. Red reflected around the rim of it but you were too far away to see what was inside. Your suspense and naive curiosity overpowered your intellect as you took slow, steady steps toward the tub.

Once you reached it and looked down into the tub, your heart pulsated and was eaten by a palpitation; a beating that rang in your ears almost deafeningly. The realization of the reality of the horrific sight you were seeing hit you way too slowly, your reaction painfully being stretched out as your breath finally hitched from how terror gripped around you like King Kong’s fist.

The tub was filled with crimson blood as Doug’s body laid in it, his upper body widely torn open from his Adam's apple to his pelvis. His insides were on complete display but all his organs had been removed, only his ribs and spine remaining. His head was laid back over the edge, his skin a ghostly pale and his eyes wide open along with his blue lips parted. He was just an empty carcass bathing in his own blood.

Heavy tears sat in the corners of your eyes painfully, like if they fell then you would share the same fate as the one in front of you. Your watering eyes shook terribly as you couldn’t separate them from the sickening, gorey site. Your mouth was hung open and one sharp inhale triggered an agonized sob to escape from your burning throat. Hot tears finally cascaded down your face as your features trembled terribly. You never felt such raw horror before in your once optimistic life. You were direfully shell-shocked.

You physically tensed up once you felt a hand touch your upper back, John stepping up to stand beside you as he looked down at the body as well. “Don’t cry over this scum, he doesn’t deserve your tears.” He spoke in a soft, calm voice as he looked at the gruesome corpse with little to no emotion. He pointed down to the mutilated chest. “See? He doesn’t even have a heart.”

Your lips quivered uncontrollably like you were freezing cold. “...Why? Why would you do this?” Your voice was hoarse and quiet; weak. John tilted his head, still looking down. He thought for a bit. “I’m doing this out of love, I suppose.”

Your brows furrowed together with a slight curve upwards, slightly shaking your head as your wide lachrymose eyes were still glued down to the tub. “This is not love.” John sighed, “I don’t expect you to understand. At least not yet.”

You choked on another sob, finally tearing your leaking eyes off the corpse to look over to John whose composure was eerily way too calm. You were visibly shaking. “You’re insane.” Even your voice was shaking. You were just utterly terrified beyond what you could handle.

John finally looked up at you, removing his hand from your back as his once blank expression shifted to one of irked offense. “Insane? I’m insane?!” His voice grew louder, making you flinch from every raised pitch. “Do you know what’s truly insane? This world that insists on keeping you away from me! It’s insane that you let humanoid monsters like this sinner attempt to corrupt you! Attempt to touch you in any way! It’s insane that they think they even have the right to do that!”

You instinctively took a step back from him, but it was like he had read your mind as he instantly took a step towards you. “I would rather kill you myself than see you with anyone else! No matter what happens, I will never let anyone have you.” His blazing anger finally pitched down but you still took another step back, prompting him to take another step forward.

“Without you… I'm… nothing. I feel nothing without you.” He spoke with sick, feverish admiration laced within his features and eyes. You had taken another step away but your back had hit the wall. You were caged and cornered like an animal intended to be prey. Your limbs were shivering and tears still spilled out of your wide eyes.

John looked your fear-stricken form up and down before a small smile spread his lips. He said with a smug tone, “I hope you realize the more scared you are, the more excited I get.”

You looked his skinny figure up and down as well, weighing your options in your head. You could take him. And thus, thinking impulsively from the pressure of your own terror, you lunged your fist across his face and roughly shoved at his chest before making a run for it.

You couldn’t tell if you were too slow or your punch was too weak, but John had tackled you against the wall just before you got a close enough chance to escape the bathroom. You tried to throw hits at him but he shoved his body against yours so that you were painfully squished against the wall and him; caged. He shoved his leg in between yours and his hands pinned your arms against the wall with his nails digging into your forearms, earning hissing winces of pain from you.

“What a wicked way to treat me, the person who loves you, like this.” He said in between your ear and neck as you struggled and squirmed against him. “I just want to protect you. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

You wanted to respond with something hateful but you froze in your position from the sound and vague feeling of his nose slightly caressing the crook of your neck while inhaling deeply through his nose. “Wh-what are you d-doing?” Your voice said in between breathy sobs, your legs and arms still trembling.

“I’ve just realized,” John began, “I’ve never got to feel you before.” The hands that squeezed your forearms slowly began to massage your skin, the bandages on his fingertips feeling like sickening velvet. Wiggling his leg lightly between your inner thighs, pressing his chest closer to yours as his warm breath dusted onto your neck. You squeezed your tear filled eyes shut in wild discomfort. “This is the closest we’ve ever physically been.” He breathed out.

A meter was the minimum of space that had ever been between you, and now he was pressed up against you, not even a millimeter of air left between you. It sent blood to his already flushed cheeks and straight down to where his khaki pants began to strain; an erotic euphoria bubbling within his gut as he unintentionally released a stuttered, breathless moan. His palms nuzzled against the plush skin he held onto. He could feel you so distinctly.

When you felt his nose inhale in your hair that’s when you began to struggle against him again. “Get OFF me!” You finally snapped out at him, trying to use your body weight to shove him off of you. His grip slightly loosened which gave you the opening to thrash your forearms out of his hold and begin punching at his chest.

John’s hand snatched your throat in a haste and shoved you back against the wall, compressing harshly. You choked on a gasp as your hands flung to his in a desperate attempt to claw his fingers off. “You have no idea how nice I’m choosing to be. You should be grateful that I didn’t make you watch me gut that man like the pig he is; grateful that I’m doing this all the easy way.” He said through gritted teeth close to your face.

Your quivering lips clenched before you jerked your knee up to jab him in his groin. He wheezed and released your throat, severe gasps for air populating your mouth as you touched your stinging throat. John took an unintentional step back from you which left you the opportunity to attempt your running escape. You bolted out the bathroom and down the pitch black hall, John had closed the front door when you first walked in so the only source of light was from the bathroom you were running from. You knew you just needed to keep running straight.

You barely got to register the loud cracking noise because you had collapsed to the ground, falling roughly onto your side from the sudden sharp, roaring pain in the back of your calf. You repeatedly hissed in pain when you tried to move, heavy breathing pumping through your lungs. You reached down to your calf to feel a wet substance, a nasty mixture of horror and panic suffocating you.

It wasn’t long before John approached you with a flashlight. The bright light shifted your eyes to the illuminated floor, realizing the layer of clear rubber fabric all over the floor. “Did you really think you could escape me? Don’t you know we’re meant to be together? You’re destined to return to me.” His words fell upon your deaf ears, too caught up in shock.

“You… fucking shot me.” You croaked, your petrified eyes staring at your own wet blood on your fingers. You didn’t want to look further down to the real wound. “I suspected you’d try to run away, so I took the expected precautions.” John spoke plainly as he stepped closer to you, tucking his gun back away as his flashlight was still aimed on your fallen form. “It’s alright, I forgive you. But next time I won’t be as forgiving.”

Your breathing came out uneven and shaky as your incredibly glossy eyes remained on the fresh blood on your fingertips from your leg. John stepped over you so that you were in between his legs before he lunged down onto you, straddling your back as he forced a cloth coated in a chemical onto your mouth and nose.

Your red puffy eyes still drowned in their own terrified tears. “No! Please!” Your dolorous begs became muffled, your squirming actions slowly deflating in energy. Your vision was blurring and darkening, the wall blending with the floor as it warped into unrecognizable shapes. Your head swayed and your mind grew hazy. And before you knew what was happening, you sank into unconsciousness.

#john doe x reader #John doe #seven #seven 1995 #se7en (1995)#se7en movie #Se7en #Se7en x reader #reader insert #dark fic #yandere #david fincher #brad pitt #morgan freeman #yandere x reader

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royaltealovingkookiness · 4 years ago

Note

Since you believe Azula deserves a redemption arc, do you also think Ozai needs a happy ending? They both did the same horrors (Azula's were worse, depending on the point of view) for the same reasons. They both are probably deeply traumatized and never had love in their lives. Do you think that's moral to let either rot in prison without ever giving them any chance?

I know this is probably not meant as a real question, but I’ll answer it anyways, because I am pretty particular about what I believe makes a good redemption arc.

Redemption is not something that anyone “deserves” through past trauma. No matter how someone was hurt, it doesn’t justify hurting others. Also, anyone can be redeemed whether their shitty behaviour comes from being a victim of abuse or just being an average joe with some misguided preconceptions, but it is something they decide to seek for themselves (1) by admitting they were wrong (2) stop doing the shitty things they were doing (3) starting to do the right things regardless of personal consequences and this includes atoning for the wrongs they’ve done.

This is something that anyone at any point can do, regardless of how deep their sins are. It doesn’t mean that the character will be forgiven by their victims or even feel redeemed in the eyes of outsiders, but anyone at any stage can decide to be better. Look at Iroh; he will never be able to undo the harm he caused with the siege of Ba Sing Se, but also nobody can claim that him becoming a better person than he was and seeking ways to atone hasn’t made a difference for the better. But regardless, it is pretty understandable if for families that suffered loss because of him, his deeds will be unforgivable and I think Iroh himself accepts that. Redemption doesn’t erase the past.

Within the context of a story, there are elements that can set up a redemption arc to make us, the audience feel like it should happen, because we see the character as capable of the reflection and change that’s needed for that very crucial step 1 of admitting that they are wrong. I think that’s the hardest, because human nature is to rationalize our behaviour - nobody wants to be the villain of their own story.

If you look at Zuko’s arc for example, S1 is peppered with instances where we feel his inner goodness that is in constant conflict with his actions and the expectations he is under. As his motivations being revealed, it’s clear that he is acting from a very human desire of being loved and being part of a family.

The character also needs conflict / failures that challenges their views as a catalyst for change, which Zuko had plenty of opportunities of as he became a fugitive in Earth Kingdom, facing the real damage the war has done.

So if you look in this light Ozai and Azula - now leaving aside the not insignificant fact that one of them is an adult and the other is a minor, who under modern standards is not fully legally responsible for her actions or the fact that the deaths and destruction caused by Ozai vastly outweighs anything Azula has ever done - you can see in the context of the story:

Ozai has no glimpses of goodness inside him, we never really see him doubt or reflect, or care about anyone; his only motivation seems to be self-aggrandization and more power, willing to sacrifice his own family on the alter of his ambition. You say he never had love in his life - I don’t think that’s true. Zuko and Azula both love Ozai, but he doesn’t want their love, only their obedience.

Azula on the other hand shows glimpses of caring for Zuko, for Ty Lee, she has moments of nagging conscience (her mother’s voice) and is driven by mostly wanting her father’s approval.

As she almost always succeeds until the very end and her success earns her the approval she seeks, she has not much conflict between her preconceptions and reality and as such, less opportunities to reflect and change.

Book 3 leaves us at the first very real failure of Azula, the type of life-changing event that breaks or makes a character. Azula has a lot going for her; she’s smart, resourceful, loyal, she has tenacity, she holds herself to a very high standard; the biggest roadblock for her to overcome is her own pride, but this is something that’s perfectly possible with the right push. It’s something Zuko himself overcame too.

So I think, the story set up a much more believable foundation for a redemption for Azula - should she decide to become better - than for Ozai, who never showed any sign of self-awareness.

Still, even with Ozai being a two-dimensional evil villain, the narrative acknowledges that the path towards betterment is always open.

Zuko says this to Ozai: “ Banishing me was the best thing you could have done for my life. It put me on the right path. Perhaps your time in here could do the same for you.”

Ozai going to prison is a consequence of all his actions. But the narrative acknowledges that even someone rotting in prison can decide to be better. We never get any inkling that Ozai would, but it is ultimately up to him.

I think Azula though has had enough “seeds” to start a compelling redemption arc, coupled with Zuko’s own redemption that could have manifested the type of opportunities that were missing from Azula’s life to serve as catalyst for change.

#atla #atla meta #redemption arc #azula #ozai #azula redemption #rtk

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microsuedemouse · 4 years ago

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man it has been a MINUTE since I made my own post about anything fandom-related on this website but @suzirya is blogging about The Old Guard and I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it really and I’ve got. some thoughts

I had literally never heard of this movie at all until a few nights ago when we were eating dinner in the living room and my dad pulled it up and said ‘hey I want to watch this’ and played the trailer for my brother and me. We were pretty much like yeah, sure, we all enjoy a good action flick, and aside from my other brother (who was occupied with D&D) it ended up being the whole family watching it. and I enjoyed it WAY more than I’d anticipated, especially for something I’d never heard about.

if you don’t know what I’m talking about: drop what you’re doing and go watch The Old Guard on Netflix. (it’s a Netflix original so yes it will be there.) it’s a very fun and good action film based on a series of graphic novels about a small group of immortals trying to do what’s right. there are many selling points but one of them is that it will be very good for your little gay soul, bc Charlize Theron stars (in a character with no explicitly-stated romances but lots of relationships that will make you Feel Things) and two of the other main characters are two men who met during the Crusades and are just amazingly in love with each other. And not in a vague way that the straights can interpret as Powerful Friendship. They are explicitly in love with each other and so devoted and ugh.

ANYWAY. putting the rest of my chattering under a cut bc spoilers and also I’m a wordy piece of shit

1 - early in this movie I was thinking about how glad I am that Charlize Theron has stepped into this role of like... cool female action star, but also, her characters are never super sexed up. almost any female characters I can think of in action movies, if they’re part of the action rather than victims/bystanders, are always made sexy. even when they’re Strong sexy, they’re still... a lot sometimes? I was thinking especially of some Angelina Jolie stuff, Scarlett Johanssen, etc. there are probably lots of exceptions to this that I just don’t know but still - we’ve had Theron in several roles like this recently, and appearance-wise she’s treated with the same respect as her male counterparts, which is so fucking cool and also such a fucking relief. we all love beautiful ladies, obviously, but it’s so SO good to see our female heroes just doing their jobs, without us ever being made aware of their sexuality.

and as the movie went on this was hitting me more and more, and I was also thinking it about... everyone? like. the other female lead, played by KiKi Layne, was arguably more feminine than Theron but not any more sexualised. even once she’s out of her army fatigues she’s dressed with practicality in mind, and again, we never have her female-ness pointed out to us. and I was so about every bit of that. both objectively and as a person whose relationship to female-ness and femininity is kind of weird, it’s such a good thing to see leading women whose gender and appearances and bodies aren’t being focussed on that way.

and as a sidebar to that, while I wouldn’t describe any of the prominent male characters as unattractive by any means, none of them were like... Marvel-actor hot. and I just, idk, especially in action/superhero movies, that’s refreshing to me. a lot of them looked like Regular Dudes in a way that I find very appealing.

2 - can we TALK about Joe and Nicky. holy shit. my brother and I kept leaning over to each other to be like ‘if anything happens to either of them I’ll riot.’ I MEAN.

we got a genuine, explicit, on-screen established romance between these men. it was not implied, it was not just how the actors played it in the hopes that people would catch on - it was right there. they hold each other to sleep, they kiss each other with such love, they talk to other characters about how much they adore each other. they met during the Crusades. they’ve been in love for centuries! and they’re so sweet, so devoted, so adoring! and they never have any arguments or tension to further the plot (one of my personal most-hated plot devices in any story with an established relationship). they just spend this movie loving each other, protecting each other and their weird little family, doing anything they can for each other. they’re taken prisoner and spend their time awake joking and making each other smile. and the one singular bit of casual homophobia they encounter on-screen is met with a declaration of love so heartfelt and intense that the guy who made the shitty comment literally doesn’t know what to say - which is a brief but extremely good scene in the movie, imo.

oh, also worth noting: this romance is biracial and interfaith (inasmuch as either of them may be men of faith after being alive for centuries). just to add to how good this is to see on-screen. all of this on top of them being IMMORTAL AND UNKILLABLE. NO GAYS BURIED HERE

2.5 - can I talk for a second about how goddamn much I love seeing non-hetero romance in genre fiction!!! I know it’s getting easier to find, but still. genre fiction is very much my domain and I love seeing queer romance there, especially when it’s simply an accepted fact and the characters’ queerness isn’t central to the story. narratives about queerness are good and important and serve a function but most of them aren’t really my thing, personally. a story that’s about all kinds of other things but also has queer characters there, being themselves, being in love, is so 1000% my shit.

3 - also? Charlize Theron’s character, Andy?? fascinating from a queer perspective. she doesn’t have any explicitly-stated romance with anyone, but her relationships with other characters are so compelling and so interesting. The backstory about her and another immortal, Quynh, very very distinctly gives you the impression that they were women in love. everything about Andy’s guilt and bitterness over not having been able to find/save Quynh feels so much like there was a romance there. it could have been platonic or familial - they were together, without anyone else, for centuries at least, and therefore obviously developed a very deep love - but the way Andy talks about Quynh it feels so much like there was something left unsaid, or unresolved.

also, her scene with the clerk in the pharmacy. oh my god. this woman clearly recognises that whatever is going on with Andy, something is wrong, and she offers her help, no questions asked. she takes her into the back room and patches up her wound. this scene has such an inherent intimacy because of the close quarters and the privacy and the act taking place, but... there’s also this really interesting connection happening between them, where they recognise something in one another but don’t state it. (personally, I couldn’t help wondering if the clerk was a domestic abuse survivor, maybe? but there are so many ways you could interpret her character from her behaviour and dialogue in that scene, and I’d love to see other people’s takes.)

and then on the other hand you have her relationship with Booker, who’s been with her the longest out of any of the living immortals. they’re incredible. their relationship is so, so interesting and well-depicted! they have such chemistry, that you can easily read as romantic or platonic. they’ve been together for so many hundreds of years and they work together, trust each other, with such a deep understanding and love and respect. and it never quite tips over into the romance you kind of think it will, which imo only makes it that much more compelling - there are so many directions you could take that dynamic.

4 - and then on the topic of Booker: I am SO into the way his betrayal was handled.

he did, undeniably, betray the others. there’s no argument on that fact. his motivations were understandable (and heartbreaking), even to Andy, though certainly not an excuse. so yes, they were furious with him. reasonably so! but... that didn’t actually break their relationships with him. they didn’t leave him behind in the lab, even if in some ways they might have wanted to. and in the ensuing battle, they were still able to work together and trust each other as they always have. the damage done to their larger relationship was put aside to be dealt with after all of this, as it should be. and even when they did deal with it, what they agreed on was just a century of exile from their group. given the lives they’re all living, that seems like such a mild sentence.

but to me, it makes so much sense. again, these people have lived for centuries, and there are so few of them. they need each other. the bonds they’ve formed over all this time together - the trust, the love, the sense of family - would not only be vital to both their survival and their sanity, but also incredibly difficult to truly break. what he did would seem unforgivable from an outside perspective, and even after that century passed I’m certain he’d have to earn back their trust and respect, but it makes absolute sense that they’d be willing to take him back one day.

god. GOD. I’m sure there’s more I could talk about but this is what I can think of right now and I’ve been typing for like forty minutes probably so I’m done for now but.

god.

this movie and its characters GOT ME, guys. I’m really in it. ugh UGH

#the old guard #Courtney talks

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starfighter10 · 4 years ago

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tlou2 opinion

So I really had to share my opinion(rant) on the last of us part 2 and boy I have a lot to say. I am gonna dwell deep into this one, so bear with me if you can and want to

But before that I have to share the feelings I hold for tlou1.Back when I finished tlou1, I knew I experienced something truly magical. I was pleasantly surprised by the beautifully crafted story, the execution of the characters, the music, the gameplay , and the effort that went into shaping the journey of the game,the character arcs and bonds. You could see and experience the uniqueness and passion that went into the first project. This game immediately became a favourite of mine.

When tlou2 was announced, my expectations were skyhigh,was elated to continue Joel and Ellie's journey and how it unfolds. The bar set by the first one was exceptionally high and probably impossible to achieve, but I had trust and faith in naughty dog, thought they couldn't go wrong with this one. After experiencing tlou2 , I am speechless.... not in a good way. I have no words to express my disappointment,frustration and anger I feel right now. I don't even know where to begin.... the absolute mess of a plot, the original characters being blatantly ignored, retconned and disrespected in favour of new bland characters, the plotholes in the story, the false advertising and marketing, naughty dog's hubris, making a complete mockery of your fans who are paying money to play something but getting baited for something else. I am utterly heartbroken and angry.

The plot - the driving force of the game is over ambitious, lazy,sloppy and nihilistic. It felt forced. Naughty dog bit off more then they could chew with this one. Tlou2 could have gone several ways in terms of plot with the existing characters, yet we get the cliche revenge plotline with the character abandoning the quest altogether to realise revenge isn't the answer. This trope has been done several times before, with more finesse and better execution. The writers aim for the " Ellie breaks the cycle of the revenge" but it really fails to achieve this as she blatanly annihilates several characters,npcs along the way in quest of her revenge. The damage has been done practically speaking. According to naughty dog's logic , I should expect Nora's sister or a random npc's friend/relatives in tlou3 hunting down Ellie in their revenge quest. Also Abby's quest literally does nothing for me. This character was so poorly written, executed and shoved down our throats, I didn't have any sort of attachment or empathy for her. I simply don't care about this character.

The circumstances that lead to Joel's death was out of character as well. Since the trailer drop in 2016, I was prepared for his inevitable death. Thought he would probably go out like the badass he is, maybe sacrificing himself for Ellie/tommy. The Joel I know from tlou1, a hardened survivor who has fought tooth and nail to survive the past 20 years would NEVER end up in a situation like that. Joel was intensely alert, critical,clever and intuitive. The argument here may be that he has softened in Jackson, but I feel at this point this should be 2nd nature to him. Something that is automatic. Yet the writer's now want you to believe he is a dumbass who would trust a group of strangers, make small talk and introductions and end up in a situation like that. One of the bigger issues was the constant reinforcing that Joel wiped down the fireflies in cold blood and doomed humanity for death by robbing them of their cure for survival,Ellie believing the cure would have been a guaranteed sure shot success ..... WHY? This retcons the first one completely. The beauty of the tlou1 was it's moral ambiguity and uncertainty. We were constantly hinted that fireflies is a mess of a group whose agendas weren't clearly known, whose actions caused the sacrifice of many people for the sake of a slight possibility of a cure.They were power hungry and were cruel enough to send a 14 year old girl to her death with no remorse,consent or any proper investigation or medical research. Joel initially negotiates to find someone else, gets shut down immediately, gets his means of survival snatched and was practically marched to his death. He had no option but to wipe clean these people who planned on killing someone dear to him, for something that is uncertain or in vain. And yes this was a selfish decision on Joel's part, and that was the beauty of it. The moral ambiguity. He was right or wrong or both - open to your interpretation. BUT NOW NAUGHTY DOG WANTS TO TO ERASE ALL THAT DEVELOPMENT. The active reinforcement that Joel was a cold, ruthless murderer who killed fireflies and deprived humanity of its cure? Trying to erase the fact that he was surviving and trying to keep his dear ones safe in this cold, brutal and unforgiving postapocalyptic world. So that we sympathize with Abby and enjoy golfing the tf outa Joel?. Ellie seems like a different character in this one, but again this character is immediately pushed to a whirlwind of traumatic events right from the start of the game. I missed her spark of joy,humour and enthusiasm. The treatment of the main chatacter in her own game is utterly cruel and disappointing, and seemed unfair to me. By the end, Ellie is broken beyond repair. Though she thematically chooses to be the better person and gives up on her vengeance and hate, she still manages to be on the losing side as she ends up losing her father figure which was her closest bond, loses Dina and the kid , she doesn't have her community, her people, her fucking fingers as well. Why? So Ellie could suffer a little more and be unable to do most important thing that bonded her to Joel. Not to mention she loses her switchblade too, her mother's final memory. Surprised that ND spared her mother's letter . Feel her pain and despair. Why does Ellie get such a shitty,depressing, worthless, futile and a hopeless conclusion while Abby not only gets her revenge successfully, forms a close bond in Lev and gets to escape possibly to a fresh start. Ellie? Nah she gets to suffer alone. Her BIGGEST FEAR has become a reality by the end. The least they could do is let Ellie have some solace and calm, surrounded by her loved ones on that farm,her trying to recover from her trauma slowly but surely, it's what joel would have wished for. But no, she is left all alone, absolutely traumatized, all by herself with nothing to look forward to. Oh and tommy is whole new character in every scene. So keep your eyes peeled for various versions of tommy throughout. The character inconsistencies are ridiculous.

The gameplay, beautiful sceneries, and new characters like dina and jesse are few of the positives of game - leaning more towards Jesse. Dina felt perfect for Ellie and Jesse did manage to lighten up few of the moments. The space shuttle cutscene, the museum flashback sequence, ellie and joel's flashbacks were the only parts that remotely captures the magic and beauty of tlou1. I got emotional watching them. The space shuttle sequence hits you with the feels. Joel slaying a bloater with a machete was cinematic art. (Hot too)

Abby... the forced deuteragonist, is an utter failure of character execution. Her character was forced onto us, felt hasty and lacked real build up. She starts off on the wrong foot by killing one of the most popular characters. If ND really wanted this character to work, the only possible way would have been to play her point of view and backstory prior to her mercilessly killing and torturing a guy who just saved her life. What was ND thinking? That a few hours of her pov,forced out of the blue background story, her getting to play with dogs while ellie has no option but to attack the dogs, the abby-lev bond which is pretty much discount or the walmart version ellie and joel would be enough to side with her over ellie and joel???? The part where they force you to play as abby against ellie? It made me sick. I felt cheated and disgusted.

The false advertising to make us believe joel is alive and good? That this is an ellie and joel centric game?To tug at your heartstrings like this. A complete mockery of the fans who waited 7 years to see their favorite characters get horribly treated,retconned, disrespected and thrown under the bus in favour of new unlikable characters. Butchering the heart and soul of the last of us - Joel and Ellie's bond. The fact that these two don't even get a heart to heart before his death, that Joel dies uncertain of ellie's future, maybe thought he could not save Ellie in those final painful moments, that she had never forgiven him, Ellie never getting her closure with Joel, or really getting to tell him how much he meant to her.... all these thoughts legit made me shed tears. Broke my heart. This is how much ND wanted to honour and respect ellie and joel.

The game's conclusion is hollow, futile, worthless and depressing. And in my opinion, this is non canon. This is the only way I can cope with this unsastifying conclusion. It is immaturity I guess... but I will feel better about it.

Though I utterly despise tlou2, tlou1 will continue to remain one of my favorite pieces of work in fiction. JOEL FUCKING MILLER WILL ALWAYS BE THE BADDEST BITCH AND NOTHING WILL CHANGE THE LOVE I HAVE FOR HIM.

If someone actually read it all the way, thank you for your time and effort. Really needed to rant and let these negative emotions out.

#the last of us #the last of us part 2 #tlou spoilers #tlou #tlou2 #tlou joel #tlou ellie #my rants #ellie #joel miller #joel

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historic-old-guard-lover · 4 years ago

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The emperor has to be god-king Andy. Also like since nicky and Joe obv have to have the lovers why not have andy and quyhn kissing as the empress.

Another related ask (potentially by the same person):

Also since the fool is a journey's beginning I'd almost want to pick Nile for it. As well there are four characters who commonly have swords (or an axe but close enough) and cards have four corners. So one sword each corner, nicky, joe, andy, and quyhn.

So. Someone has good ideas. Here’s the post that prompted these asks. This made me pull out my tarot deck and go through the cards. Below the cut is a break down of the entire tarot deck. There will be an explanation of the (standard) interpretation of the cards, good then less good, and then my associated headcannon (or more than one if I couldn’t decide). The source is my experience with tarot. I’m trying to minimize repeats, but historic and modern Old Guard members are counted separately. Enjoy.

The Major Arcana (aka the cards most people have heard about)

0. The Fool - the seeker. Naivety. Courage. Living in the moment. Journey’s beginning. All paths available. Folly. Apathy.

Nile. Anon convinced me. Though Booker has got the folly, apathy, and madness down, Nile is ultimately the beginning. She’s naïve but headstrong, and quite frankly a perfect match.

I. The Magician - the trickster. Power, skill, talent. Mastery, self-control, willpower. Subtlety. Divine connection and inspiration. Self-reliant.

Modern Nicky. Definitely Nicky. Just. He’s a formerly very religious man who just says these things. Also sniper.

II. The High Priestess - the moon goddess. Intuition, wisdom, foresight, divination, prophecy. Enlightenment, understanding, intelligence, education. Pride, emotional instability, unforgiving.

Historic Quynh. Her name means “night-blooming flower”, which is very moon goddess vibes to me. Also, I’d say over 500 years in a box turns understanding and enlightenment into emotional instability and unforgiveness.

III. The Empress - the queen. Feminine power, matriarch, mother. Fertility, pleasure, beauty. Success, evolution, movement. Marriage, wealth. Overattachment, domestic upheaval, delay.

Quynh. The counterpart to Andy’s emperor card.

Nile. Let’s be honest, she’s going to take over from Andy some day.

IV. The Emperor - the king. Masculine power, patriarch, father. Authority, leadership, proficiency. Wealth, stability, effectiveness. Perseverance, logic, endurance, experience. Lack of ability, weak character, immature, rebellious.

Modern Andy. She is the leader who’s short-comings effect her entire team. And who doesn’t love a little gender bending? (and her film look is already soft butch)

V. The Hierophant - the religious leader. Tradition, convention, ritual symbolism. Ceremony, religion, morality, philosophy. Mercy, goodness, forgiveness, humility, vulnerability, Impotence, Religious tyranny.

Historic Nicky. I mean, former priest (enough said).

Historic Andy. “I was once worshipped as a god” (enough said).

VI. The Lovers - the lovers. Love, attraction. Compatibility, harmony, choice. Triumph over trials, vacillation. Entanglement, enmeshment. Infidelity, moral lapse, vice, separation, quarrels, inadequacy, failing tests.

Andromaquynh. *peeks out from behind barricade* I know that most people would just put Kaysanova as this card, but look at all the negatives it is associated with. Sounds a lot more like our immortal wives can really cover the gamut. They have the range....I am a sucker for Kaysanova, though. Even though the beginning of their relationship is rocky, I’d like to think it’s been fairly constant over the years. But let’s reverse the uhaul lesbians and fickle gay men tropes! Sorry, Book of Nile fans. That ship just isn’t established enough for this, I’d say. Maybe one day?

VII. The Chariot - the journey. Ordeal, obstacles, competition. High stakes, ambition, discipline. Conquest, victory, greatness. Right action prevails, overwhelming odds, sudden defeat.

Merrick and/or Dr. Kozak. I mean, this is literally their characters in a nutshell. Merrick is the journey/ordeal for the old guard. He is driven by his ambition, thinks he’s won over impossible odds, and then has a sudden defeat.

VIII. Justice - the balance. Equilibrium, equality, symmetry, harmony. Integrity, honor, fairness, neutrality, moderation. Vindication, self-righteousness, bigotry, prejudice, favoritism.

Nile. This is the woman with a sword card. She brings a balance to the team, she clearly moderates conflict, and I’d love to see BLM art of her in this style. Just sayin.

IX. The Hermit - the seeker-sage. Wisdom, inspiration, contemplation, discretion, understanding. Safety, protection, spiritual quest. Seeking truth and justice. Self-denial, timidity, fear.

Historic Joe. The idealized warrior poet? Definitely just a form of the hermit. Helps explain why a Magrebhi trader/artist fought at the Siege of Jerusalem: spiritual quest. I also like the idea of Joe having a secret reserved side.

X. The Wheel of Fortune - cycles of life. Destiney, evolution and progress, advancement. Manifestation, unexpected events. Success, sudden luck. Ups and downs.

Modern Quynh. There is nothing that better encapsulates her storyline than the wheel of fortune. One day you’re roaming the world with your immortal wife. The next, you’re drowning for over 500 years. The next you’re in Booker’s shitty Paris apartment.

XI. Strength - fortitude. Resilience, courage, resolve, confidence. Integrity, moral victory, endurance. Energy, action, vitality. Power, force, violence. Abuse of power, disgrace, impotence.

Lykon. Do I love this character beyong measure and reason? Maybe so. We have so little to go on about him, however, that the only things we do know bely his strengths. Also, he becomes ultimately the weakest when he dies and encapsulates both “extremes” of the card.

XII. The Hanged Man - the tested. Delay, sacrifice, abandonment, rejection. Betrayal. Reversals, restrained or bound, limbo, trials. Falseness.

Booker. If the fact that his first death was by hanging didn’t convince you? Read that description again. His character arc is literally working through being the hanged man.

XIII. Death - the loss or parting. Alteration, transformation, transition. Boredom, depression, stagnation, failure or disaster. Bereavement, recovery, immobility.

Lykon. He literally represents the fear of death to the remaining immortals. It is HE that they invoke when they discuss it. Also, I’m still mourning my favorite underdeveloped character.

XIV. Temperance - the moderation. Self-control, economy, patience, coordination. Consolidation, harmony, friendship, recuperation. Unfulfilled desires, discord, stubbornness, hostility, clashing of interests. Time, seasons, and climate.

A Safehouse. I don’t think any of the people really capture the tempered essence of this card, the constancy throughout all seasons of life. An actual physical building that rises and falls with (regular) humanity, though, seems to do the trick.

XV. The Devil - the arcane. Magic, strange occurrences, prophecy, fate. Catastrophe, downfall, negative attitude, Temptations, sins, obsessions. Enslavement, bondage, misplaced loyalty, violence, fatality.

Honestly? I’m so torn. I feel like a major commentary of the movie is that our demons are the way people react more so than the people themselves. Maybe the armored van?

XVI. The Tower - the House of God. Disruption, expulsion from an earthly paradise, divine wrath. Punishment (of pride), loss, destructive rivalry, plans ruined. Need to start again, bankruptcy.

The Iron Coffin. While this doesn’t capture the religious undertones quite right, the coffin is the Tower for Andromaquynh, It is (divine? or very human?) wrath brought on by pride since the two probably thought that they would be fine. It is loss and painful new beginnings.

XVII. The Star - the bright promise. Hope, faith, light of the spirit. Recovery, symbols of immortality. Gifts, good prospects, new dawn, frustrated expectations.

Nile. The new immortal, enough said.

Historic Andy/Lykon. In a way, the first immortal would also be a great choice of representation.

XVIII, The Moon - the hidden forces. Twilight, illusion, deception, trickery. Dishonesty, danger, uncertainty, terror. Developments, particularly somewhat concealed. Errors, powerful feelings.

Copley. I know, I know. “He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness” and all that jazz. But look at this card’s interpretation and notice it’s pretty negative. Copley’s entire role is to pull the strings behind the scenes. He makes headway on problems in secrets, he lies and deceives everyone in the film at some point.

XIX. The Sun - the work’s rewards. Daylight, co-creation, union “of male and female”. Peace, joy, pleasure, love, contentment. Accomplishment, achievement, success.

Joe. Not only is he the sun, he also fits this card perfectly. He is creation and happiness. Enough said.

XX Judgement - the rebirth. Judgement, sentence. Rejuvenation, renewal, resurrection, call to the new from the old, rehabilitation. Creation, promotion.

Historic Booker. I feel like his backstory with his family helped highlight the theme of rebirth for the Old Guard. They must be willing to give up what they have left behind to move forward. Also, there’s the more literal play as well since Booker was a conscripted criminal.

XXI The World - the long journey. Perfection, completion, conclusion. Power through intelligence and wisdom. The universe and the material world.

A group photo, of course! Beyond that? Who knows.

Historic Andy? She’s seen so much of it. Like just her eyes portray the history of the world.

The Minor Arcana (aka the rest of the cards)

Since most people are only familiar with the major arcana, I’ll just briefly explain it. The minor arcana are actually the majority of a tarot deck. There are four suits associated with the four elements. Each suit has ten number cards and four court/face cards (traditionally modelled either based on one person or different interpretations of similar costuming). Each number or face has its own meaning, each suit has its own meaning, and their combination mostly explains what the card should be interpreted as. Quite frankly, the minor arcana are vastly underrated in popular understandings of tarot.

Suit of Wands - fire. Spontaneity, action, passion, adrenaline, life force, stroke of genius.

Guns? It’d be a bit of a niche take, but I associate guns with fires.

Staffs? More traditional in shape.

Suit of Coins - earth. Solid growth, material interests, possessions, profit, business, labor, slow and considerate.

Historic currency. Enough said.

Suit of Cups - water. Heartfelt involvements, imagination, spirituality, love, friendship, family.

Fountains around the world. Enough said.

Suit of Swords - air. Worry, trouble, boundaries, objectivity, the power of truth.

Obviously, their weapons of choice. I would go into more detail about who best represents each number, but I don’t want to bore you.

Court of Kings - mature men. Leaders, authority, status-quo, taking responsibility.

Again, most tarot is very gendered. But members in tuxes?

Court of Queens - mature women. Reflective and active, concerned with security/foundations, supportive, focused.

Members in dresses/gowns/anything that glitters?

Court of Knights/Cavaliers - young men. Dynamic, adventurous, intensive, revolutionary.

Tactical gear. Or historical armor. But it’s easier to do tactical gear right than accidentally draw a 15th century helmet on a 14th century suit of armor.

Court of Knaves/Pages - younger women, teenagers, and children. Students, apprentices, trainees, messengers, new opportunities.

Casual clothes.

#asks #lovely anon #tarot #reference #niche headcannons #major and minor arcana #i really thought this would have more kaysanova #but tarot is for wlw i guess? who knows

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moderate-brainrot · 4 years ago

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legion lore is bullshit 😐

But first; some disclaimers

First of all, I literally love the entirety of legion so this is not even remotely hate, in fact it’s genuine care. They deserve so much better that it hurts my brain, and I’m going to complain about the lore until they fix it (which they never will so don’t bother waiting for me to stop).

Secondly, I’m a shitty interpreter. Although the story of DBD is left ambiguous and vague on purpose, there are still some set things that are supposed to be in place. I tend to take a humanistic approach, the same way I did with Lisa and Rin’s backstories, so this could sound like I’m sympathizing, or excusing. That’s not really my intention but also I’m probably biased, I make an effort not to be but! We all make mistakes. Small story details and choices of words tend to mean very little when I’m looking at the lore, so precedents that someone else may have identified might not even be considered important to me. I’m trying to piece together a coherent and interesting conclusion.

I also wanted to note that I will not consider “the legion is out of place!!!! they clash with the entire cast!!!!!” in this whole rant because? it’s stupid as FUCK, nobody complains about ghostface being in the game, and they (unfortunately) are very similar in terms of age group (Danny is implied to be pretty young, not as young Frank though). I think legion fits in alongside the other killers just fine. It really wouldn’t make sense if you only had traditional representations of “evils” anyway. These evils are supposed to come from every corner of the world, it would only make sense if one of the evils happened to be a band of delinquents.

Okay, here we go.

I think the legion is a good idea. A nice concept. I think their powers and perks were thought out and nicely intertwine with their personalities/characters.

HOWEVER,

the lore for them is so shoddily put together that all you really have to piece together an actual character is their appearance. That only really works to some degree. I feel like the players know who the legion are. You can feel what they stand for just by looking at them. They are cynical, unforgiving, and callous just like normal teenagers would be. Except these teenagers are deeply disturbed so they solve their problems with murder.

HOWEVER,

You get NONE of this from the lore. It’s an observation. That’s not exactly the best thing. Your killer shouldn’t have to be explained, but when the lore is left with so many loose ends, you’re asking a lot from the player. There is very little to go off of.

The lore, essentially, is this:

Frequently moved around foster kid, Frank, is looking for an escape from his newest family since the new town is so unbearably boring. He tries to get out by finding another adoptive family but he meets Julie, who is also looking for a way out of the bland town. Frank goes to the parties Julie hosts and meets Joey and Susie (who were SUCH afterthoughts that they don’t even have fucking last names). They start hanging out in this abandoned place, and for whatever reason, Frank suddenly wants to do crime and have his new crew trained into soemthing.... “”powerful””???? They become neighborhood bullies and do delinquent shit.💡 Joey gets fired from his job and Frank says that they should all go vandalize the shit out of it.💡 They go to vandalize it but some janitor guy happens to be there and he grabs Julie, she cries out for help and Frank stabs the janitor in the back because of his.:.. “”dark impulses””...ok.💡 Then Frank says “okay now you guys have to kill him” and Joey stabs the guy in the ribs, Susie however refuses and Julie does it for her until Susie actually has to stab him but Frank moves her hands for her.💡They go to mount ormond (hey) to dispose of the body💡 and They’re digging the janitor’s grave when Frank sees some weird shit in the woods and goes to it and then doesn’t come back.💡 The rest of the legion follow his footprints before they even bury the body which leads to thick fog™️ and now they are killers in the realm.

The lightbulbs are for notes I made while reading the tomes.

💡(1). The legion start off by doing the most juvenile shit. Graffiti, yelling at neighborhood children, and stealing. They don’t sound like deeply evil entities, they sound like pathetic teenage swine, bullies. They’re supposed to be oppressive and unforgiving, but they are too passive to be taken seriously. They should have made it so they were never really killing people but just stabbing people, lots of them. That’s a lot more violent/evil than petty crimes.

💡(2). Frank’s first thought when Joey gets fired is to dare Joey to GRAFFITI HIS FORMER PLACE OF WORK???? NOT KILL HIS BOSS? NOT BURN THE SHOP DOWN? JUST SPRAY PAINT??? You would think that his mind, apparently attractive enough to the entity, would go to darker places than vandalism.

💡(3). Only Frank had these “”dark impulses™️””, so Why are there even four legions instead of just fucking one. He literally had to guilt everyone else to stab the man. He is completely alone in experiencing this impulse.

💡(4). What happened to “It came to a point where they would do anything he asked. Nothing was off-limits when they put their masks on.” ?? Susie downright refused to stab the man the first time she was handed the knife. It was only when Frank guided her hands that she “did it” (which she didn’t because it was Frank controlling the blade). Sure, Frank is manipulative, but the lore can’t decide if he’s good at it or not. The legion seems less like a group and more like a cult with Frank at the forefront. It’s very contradictory.

💡(5). The legion are chaos fiends. That’s their whole thing. Burying the body creates zero chaos or worry anywhere. The dude was a janitor, if you bury him there’s a good chance that nobody will notice which defeats the entire point.

💡(6). Frank goes in first. I really think that’s where it should’ve ended. I think it would make him more evil. He would’ve abandoned his ragtag “troops” to selfishly escape the possible consequences of murder after he made them reliant on him. But since they follow after him, it seems more like they found him rather than he abandoned them.

I think the legion is seen as a group of muderous juveniles who were so bored of their town that they decided to cause as much chaos as possible to make it less unbearable. That’s pretty evil. Way more evil than killing one dude impulsively and bullying kids less than half their ages. It would make sense with their power, why it’s not so focused on killing, but on the bigger picture, spreading fear and pain across a wide scale. This also ties in with their mori. It’s very quick, boring, and underwhelming. This could be because the legion don’t care for killing people that much, they want action, drama, and chaos. Depending on the strategy, you leave the survivors with deep wounds that take time and effort to patch up, when they can do easily be slashed down again, it’s pretty despairing, empty of hope. It’s also a little charming I think it adds to their overall immaturity, moving on looking for more survivors to hit rather than viciously hound your prey and finish them off.

THAT BEING SAID,

The legion’s power makes no sense when it’s not on Frank. In the lore, Frank is the only one who showed any remote desire to kill, but even then it was presented as an impulse, a reflex even. So Why in the fresh HELL would Susie have this power? She didn’t want to kill anybody . Julie and Joey as well. Julie probably only felt guilty and indebted to Frank for saving her, and Joey was literally presented as the guy who likes to show off. Of course he’s not going to be openly reluctant, it would shatter his persona. I really think they got too carried away with the ritualistics surrounding the murder that they forgot character values are a thing. Sure the fact that they all stabbed him is symbolic but their reactions do not match up with the mechanics. They could’ve done so much more with the characters and mechanics if EVERY LEGION HAD THESE “”DARK IMPULSES™️””

They’re given to us in-game as delinquents. So I think they should ALL be punkish dammit!!!!

That’s the end of my rant;

for now.

will probably elaborate some more later but I haven’t slept yet and it’s time for school so ..

囧rz.. anyways

legion love club:

idc if frank is a manipulator he can come manipulate this dick

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dabistits · 5 years ago

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im super conflicted abt hawks atm but i was thinking abt his parallels with shigaraki and i was wondering kinda why there's a difference between wanting 'redemption' (i dont think this is the right word but i cant think of a better one 'want better' maybe?) for shigaraki but not for hawks? is it bc he made a permanent decision to kill twice as essentially an agent of the state?

Just to preface, I don’t think I’m objectively right for just wanting Hawks to eat shit immediately in the next chapter. I’m just complaining because a lot of people who “love both Hawks and Twice” and “think Hawks was wrong, but…” are hard to get away from without going in the other direction toward a group of people who have shitty fandom behavior, whose opinions about the Hawks/Twice situation are (unfortunately) much closer to my own. I don’t think there’s necessarily a “correct” way to feel about Hawks, but I feel differently than a lot of people I see around (who, ironically, are the ones insisting that there’s a “correct” way to feel about Hawks), and that’s frustrating. I want to be done with Hawks. I don’t want him to get any more focus in canon, I don’t want to see more posts about how Hawks committing murder is an indication of inner turmoil instead of him choosing a side, I don’t want to keep running into posts that tack on “but Hawks is also sad/a victim” in discussing what’s pretty clearly a tragedy for Jin and the LOV that Hawks was completely and 100% solely responsible for.

But, yeah, sure. I’ll also explain what I think is the difference between Tomura and Hawks:

1. Part of it is emotional and not logical for sure. I love Jin a lot. He embodies the person who has faced incredible adversity, and still comes out on the other side ready to love and open his heart to others, moreover to protect others. I’m not like that at all, but I think it’s very admirable. So in that sense, it hurts on a personal level to lose him over anyone else, and I can’t not associate that with Hawks, since he’s the killer.

2. Jin is a significant death. The nameless minions that Tomura has killed (many of whom were active “Quirk supremacists”) don’t mean anything to me compared to Jin, and?? Through the lens of narrative, I think that makes Tomura more forgivable, because I genuinely have no interest in there being any plot “resolution” with, like, the dead anti-mutant cultists, because I just do not care about them.

3. Tomura, especially early Tomura, has threatened to go places that are unforgivable, like leaving All Might’s students dead and forcibly bringing Bakugou over to their side (whatever terrible procedure that may have entailed). The difference is that the narrative never actually allowed him to cross that line by actually killing the kids, who we do care about as characters, so while the intent in itself is pretty awful, he was never allowed to complete the action that would take him over to the point of no return. Hawks, however, did cross the line by killing someone who we care about and who is narratively established as a “good person,” who even Hawks concedes is a good person.

3. a. I don’t like the MLA ideologically and I don’t like the decision to have the LOV team up with them. But, again, their takeover plan has been stopped in its tracks, which I’m actually fine with to prevent the LOV from crossing the moral event horizon, but that’s, like… completely irrelevant to me thinking Hawks shouldn’t have killed Jin.

3. b. Though there’s still a chance for Tomura to cross the moral event horizon, and I’m not going to convince myself that it won’t happen. If it’s going to happen, I think it’s highly possible that it might happen in this arc, because now Jin is dead and we know how Tomura and the LOV have historically responded to their friends getting hurt. I, and many others, have called Jin the “heart” of the LOV (his name is also literally written with the kanji for “benevolence”), and now without him, there is no remaining heart nor goodwill.

4. Although both Tomura and Hawks are, on one level, fighting on behalf of the ideals that they were “raised into,” their fights happen in very different ways. The MLA arc in particular made clear that the villains are, in part, fighting for their very survival in ways heroes just aren’t. The threat that the LOV were living under was constant—when it wasn’t heroes or other villain groups, it was trying to find money and shelter and essential upkeep. Hawks may not be “free” from the HPSC or the occasional villain attack, but he’s free from those constant material struggles. He’s not an “underdog.”

4. a. Tomura is also, in part, fighting to protect his marginalized friends. It’s for sure not on behalf of every marginalized person, but it’s certainly more than we’ve seen any pro hero fight for. The people Tomura is surrounded with are people who have never been protected nor cared for before, because they were not deemed “innocent” enough to deserve that care and protection, and Tomura continued to care for them even when it was troublesome for him to do so, when they disagreed with him, when they threatened him, and when they fucked up very, very badly.

4. a. i. Eri is an example of a victim who the heroes fought for, but she’s an easy case to want to love and protect: Overhaul was inarguably an abuser who wanted to elevate the yakuza, she was being used in extended torture-experiment sessions, she killed her father on accident, she’s a child, she’s innocent, she’s selfless, she’s well-behaved. It’s basically not even a question whether or not she “deserves” help.

4. b. It’s people who are difficult who get overlooked. Hawks and hero society are completely unprepared to protect and care for people who don’t behave as they’re supposed to. Hawks did not care for the LOV who didn’t personally befriend him. For the one he did, when Jin didn’t cooperate the way Hawks wanted, he went for the kill. It’s either being easy and “manageable,” or die.

4. b. i. Tomura has specifically spared two people who tried to kill him or actually succeeded in killing his ally, people who he explicitly hated or did not care for. So make of that what you will, I guess.

5. From a leftist perspective, it’s just impossible not to account for the fact that Hawks helps maintain a social structure that creates so much suffering. The question isn’t really whether AFO’s teachings to Tomura are better (they’re not, and I want Tomura to break away from them), but it can’t really be ignored that Hawks is enforcing an ideal that’s wildly popular. Why this matters is that Tomura doing the wrong things will be roundly condemned, and he’ll probably be “punished” for them; but heroes are very unlikely to be punished or held accountable for committing murder, especially if it’s “justified.”

5. a. This is problematic because it allows heroes, and the state, to define what a justified “emergency situation” is, and who can die in those emergencies. The people who are deemed killable “in an emergency” are usually those who are already marginalized; hence heroes can wait until those marginalized people get desperate enough to commit villainous acts, and then they can swoop in to arrest or kill them to widespread public acclaim.

5. b. Heroes (and law enforcement IRL) don’t address the roots of crime that lie in overarching oppressive structures like misogyny and capitalism. They don’t prevent theft by bringing people financial stability; they arrest people who were desperate enough to steal, and use those people to send a message to poor people everywhere. They make these conditions of desperation more permanent by punishing the most vulnerable people when they slip up, while doing absolutely nothing until the slip-up happens.

5. c. Heroes are punching down, and villains are punching up. That may not be the case with AFO, but I believe it with the LOV specifically, and I believe this matters because it’s exemplified between Hawks and Twice. Hawks targets someone who reached out to him, despite being hurt over and over again by types like him, who has dealt with poverty and fantasy mentally illness completely on his own, and kills him in defense of the very society that allowed all those things to happen to Jin. Hawks was given a choice: sympathize and relate to Jin, and acknowledge his well-founded grievances toward a dysfunctional society, or prioritize the safety and security of that dysfunctional society by permanently removing Jin from the equation. The choice he believes in is the choice he made.

5. d. In order for Tomura to make the same choice with the same implications, they’d have to be living in an alternate universe, in the Kingdom of AFO, where Tomura is a respected noble who infiltrates a rebel group who were going to “commit atrocities,” kills the one person who offered him a way out of AFO’s control, and possibly screws the rebels altogether, but everyone is happy that the rebels are gone. Even if you think Tomura is capable of that, it’s irrelevant because canon!BNHA has completely different power dynamics. Because Tomura’s violence will always be unpopular and persecuted, rather than justified and glorified by the state, he physically cannot replicate a choice like Hawks’. Tomura can approximate it, but even if he does, he’ll be hunted down by heroes for doing so. The circumstances and consequences for making such a choice are totally different.

So. That’s why I don’t think Tomura and Hawks can be equated. Suggesting that this is a level playing field is essentially believing that criminals and law enforcement exist on level playing fields, and they absolutely do not at all. Hawks is particularly abhorrent because he’s already followed through with his choice. He holds power by being part of the policing class, and regardless of how he came into it, he behaves exactly the same as everyone else who “freely” joined, and in his position of power he made the choice to eliminate someone who was socially powerless.

#ask #commentary #long post /

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fancyfade · 4 years ago

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I think I was talking to my friend earlier and was like “I should do a tumblr post for my OCs alignments” but then forgot to so anyway

with classic DND alignments

Saeyt Doraz (aka Tank) Twilek Republic Trooper: Tank is the epitome of Chaotic Good. It’s really amazing she hasn’t been kicked out of the Republic Army because if someone tells her to do something morally objectionable but as an order she’s like “I’m sorry but are you aware that that’s wrong? Anyway I’m hanging up my comms now goodbye”. Tank likes to think of people as mostly good, but also isn’t naive enough to let people who might be dangerous in a position where they could hurt others. She’s more risky with herself though.

Messilandre Melina Mirialan Jedi Knight: Messilandre definitely starts the game closer to Lawful Neutral but eventually levels up to Neutral Good. But beginning game: Messilandre likes things to be clear and reasonable. She doesn’t like surprises, unclear expectations, or unclear instances of which side people are on. She’s unforgiving with her enemies in most cases, which is what takes her off the “good” tier at first -- she is not opposed to killing say, a Sith Lord who is trying to surrender, because in Messilandre’s mind... well, they’re gonna escape or kill more people anyway. This earns some well deserved “What the fucks” From her party members.

Harin So, Voss Jedi Consular: Even though Harin So can come off as kind of cold or unempathetic, Harin So stays in the “good” section for zir tenure in the game. Zie does get people killed, but it’s more of due to not being omniscient/attempting to call Terrakh Morrage’s bluff when he’s not bluffing, rather than any malice or calculated decision to let people die. Harin So has low sympathy for people zie believes got themselves into that mess -- like the Black Sun smugglers who were dying after trying to smuggle noetikons -- but zie still helps.

Taimen Kor, Sith Smugger: Tai definitely starts off his adulthood in the neutral (in between good and evil) asshole side, but by time the game starts he’s decidedly chaotic good. As a smuggler, Tai doesn’t have a ton of respect for the laws -- and why would he, after growing up and seeing how they were used in Imperial Rule? Tai thinks people should just try to help each other even if it cuts into profit margins, which winds up making him a kind of shitty smuggler.

Lycaea Archeliou, Togruta(ish) Sith Warrior: Lycaea’s probably chaotic neutral, maybe chaotic good later on enough. Lycaea will generally pick the helping, or at least not hurting, people options in game, but it isn’t until Jaesa starts her lightside Sith crusade and Vette starts a stealth campaign against some empire slave camps* that lycaea is involved in actively trying to make things better when they don’t just come across her path. For the most part, Lycaea needs to see things and people to care about them.

Xahaiyarishin, Kaleesh Bounty Hunter: True Neutral. Xareesh has a moral code she follows and she’s generally consistent with it. She doesn’t go out of her way to hurt people and she has hard codes against fighting people who can’t defend themselves, but if you’re like... a soldier she believes is a worthy combatant? You are definitely at risk of being killed by Xareesh for money. Like Harin So, Xareesh is fairly unsympathetic towards people she thinks made shitty decisions with the intent of profiting from them, the only difference is Xareesh doesn’t help them she’s just... “you made your bed now lie in it.” example yalt or whatever who betrays Nemro for money. She’s like “What did you *think* would happen? *shoots*”

Aereinys Trin, Chiss Imperial Agent: At the start of her plot, Aereinys is the true imperial ideal for an imperial agent, meaning Lawful Evil. People who are the empire’s enemies, even if all they’re doing is you know, not wanting to be subjugated by the empire? Sorry, but murder (or however she’s been told to deal with them). People who might blow her cover? She analyzes the options for the least subtle, most efficient way of resolving it, but murder is definitely on the table. Someone she was told to kill? Murder again it’s amazing how versatile a tool that is! She does not question the Empire until it hurts her personally, which is very human but also... Yikes ™. then she skews towards a LOT more chaotic, her faith is completely shaken, she wants to kill every Sith and Imperial Agent involved in her brainwashing but is terrified to do so. Outwardly she follows orders, inwardly she plots revenge.

Nehari Racin, Cathar Sith Inquisitor: Nehari was initially concpetualized as a chaotic evil character because when I created her character I was like “wait do I have a darkside one yet? *rolls up stereotypical dark side char*” After her character got more honed... well she’s definitely still evil, but she isn’t as stereotypically chaotic evil. Nehari (like any good Sith) believes that power justifies itself and the only point of having power is to get more of it. She actually may be going through some character growth, though. I think she realizes exactly how phony the sith rhetoric (and rhetoric she didn’t realize she was agreeing with earlier) is when she becomes a sith, because so many sith are only strong in comparison to people weaker than them. her actions change here and she becomes a lot less of a bully, which is probably the first time anyone’s ever had THAT happen on korriban.

*ok this part with vette isn’t canon BUT ITS CANON TO ME. Jaesa and Vette do stuff to try to make it less shitty for some people in the empire.

#me lovely little ocs #swtor #nehari racin #aereinys trin #lycaea archeliou #xahaiyarishin #taimen kor #harin so #messilandre melina #saeyt doraz #dnd alignment #slavery mention /#murder mention /

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charmingpplincardigans · 5 years ago

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This is just a too long ramble about Doctor Who and Martha Jones so like, not necessary reading. Just necessary saying. For me.

You know, I am having a very different experience in frustration with the Martha Jones season of Doctor Who as a 36 year old than I did when I was first watching it at 24. I remember that at the time I loved her and that a very vocal part of fandom did not love her because* of how love sick she was for so much of the season. That's a legitimate complaint for several reasons, most of which for me have to do with the very white male specific power-of-cleverness fantasy that was slightly back seat in the Davies years compared to the Moffat years (for my money), but was still very much baked into the character. But in my re-watch I'm re-realizing how very much of that dynamic is not her fault. She's not a poorly written character. She's a character who is being written as being treated poorly.

(*They said. The fact that she’s a black woman cannot and should not be uncoupled from how shitty some fans were about her, but I am not the person who needs to make that post. I hope that post already exists. It’s probably on LiveJournal.)

At one point in an episode she says to him, out of frustration, "ever heard of a rebound?" Because this strange man showed up in her life, kissed her out of nowhere (genetic transfer, MY DUDE), dragged her off to see the stars and the past and the present, and then proceeded to get annoyed with her whenever she wanted to connect with him in a very human way. In one episode he hugs her when they're reunited after some harrowing time apart and then immediately shoves her aside and chides her about how stopping for hugs is a waste of time. As if she was an inconvenience herself for even wanting the warm welcome. MY MAN. For someone who loves all the little quirks of humanity you sure are unforgiving when they don't suit your needs.

And I mean, that is his character. And at that point in time his character has just lost the person he let himself care the most about in the whole universe, which was pretty damn inconvenient for him. (And heartbreaking for me personally.) I could easily put together a different post on his grief and how he's acting out those stages across the larger backdrop of the season, but I'm assuming one already exists because he's the hero and we often cut heroes slack whether they deserve it or not. We're always rooting for him, the show wants us to root for him, and sometimes in wanting us to root for him the show does its other characters a disservice.

He just spends so much of this season offering her little pieces of himself and then taking them back. Making her feel like she’s gained emotional ground and then forcing her back a step. MY GUY. And no matter his intentions, these actions are having an affect on Martha. She sees the aloneness in him. She's a compassionate, empathetic human who wants to reach out. He openly shares some of his aloneness with her. Then when he catches her reaching out he sometimes belittles her (like with the hug thing) and sometimes reminds her that she's not who he wants her to be. She's not Rose. And all of this leaves Martha as a character in a frustrated, unresolved state.

I think the reason this really kills me is that I personally like this show the most when it's about love and hope and belief. When ordinary people are given the chance to become equal with him (or with how he views himself really) and prove over and over that our innate desire for connection to both other humans and the universe is what makes us shine. Some of my very favorite dialogue is from "The Satan Pit" episode, because the Doctor himself spends so much of it wrestling with the idea of and importance of belief as a conduit for doing good in the universe.

Martha DOES believe. She believes in him even when he's being an absolute shit. She believes in herself and her abilities and her courage. She believes in the propensity of the good outcome. You kind of have to, I guess, if you're just gonna decide to run into danger after a madman for months on end.

And this brings me to now because when I was younger these things didn't stick out to me as harshly. I hadn't yet had it incontrovertibly proven to me that a relationship needs a lot more than desire and intent to thrive. It needs all of a person. Martha is giving all of herself and the Doctor is not. He has his reasons sure. I don't think he's a bad character or a bad person, but he is, as Donna tells him at the beginning of that season, a terrifying person who needs someone to tell him when to stop, and in a lot of cases the power imbalance between himself and his companions makes that impossible for them. His self-importance is literally the thing keeping them alive a large part of the time.

So yeah, I find some of the heart-eyed awe written into Martha to be frustrating and uncomfortable. It used to make me uncomfortable from his perspective, but now it's from hers. I can relate to the way she believes and keeps trying to offer herself to someone who refuses her comfort and help even though he very much could stand to gain some comfort and help. Because like, wow. Couldn't we all?

#gently collects martha in my arms #come now dear #you don't have to accept this from him #i'm your doctor now #...#doctor who #ten #martha jones #look i love ten to death #i think he's my favorite doctor #but wow can he be a shit sometimes #my love and the object of its affections being a shit sometimes #are never mutually exclusive

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mononoke-phaux · 6 years ago

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Favourite of the main 6?

I CAN’T REMEMBER WHICH ASK THINGY THIS IS FROM SDFHDBFDS BUT (under cut for spoilers of the routes)

My default answer is generally Asra as he/they were the first one that caught my eye and who I romanced first, but if I’m honest it’s quite hard to chose a single fave. I really like all the LI’s for all manner of different reasons.

I love Asra’s look, I love snowy white hair and I adore fluffy looking hairstyles. The fact that he’s canonly NB is also a huge plus for me and the way his route was worded really felt good to me as a NB person myself (who also does not mind she/her pronouns but has a leaning towards gender neutral ones). I also really love the palette’s of all Asra’s cg’s/sprites. I really liked how msyterious he was in the beginning and I enjoyed that the mc had a secret history with him and how that eventually unfolded. Plus Faust. Gotta love danger noodle baby girl Faust.

While I haven’t played her route yet I also love Nadia’s aesthetic and colors and overall look. Anyone who knows me or has seen my art knows I’m a huge sucker for long over-the-top hair styles/gradients and Nadia’s hair is fucking GORGEOUS. I love how proper and regal she is and how stern she seemed in the beginning before suddenly kissing the MC’s hand which honestly still gives me the BIG dokis oof.

For Julian it was a little tricker for me to get into his route becuase I’m very much not a person who tolerates self deprecation on his level, and in the beginning it frustrated me a lot, especially the “break up” scene. But as things moved along it was good to see MC had the options to teach him out of these bad habits, though he still seems to struggle with it. I am also a complete sucker for redheads, even more so than white hair tbh and it’s no surprise at all that his subby nature was an instant attraction.

Muriel is another tricky one in the same sense as Julian because I personally would have said fuck you then and left the first time he told MC to get out xD He’s intended to be that kind of challenge though and even though he doesn’t have a lot out yet it’s nice to see him slowly opening up bit by bit. Where Julian struggles with legitimate feelings of unworthiness, Muriel struggles with major trust and vulnerablility issues as well as his perception of himself. I’m looking forward to seeing more of his history and learning about his feelings. He’s complex while at the same time being incredibly “simple” as a character which means he’s going to have a lot of juicy info in his route.

Portia baby do I even need to elaborate she is the brightest star of them all. The most adorable little redhead ever, absolutely loyal and selfless and kind but also takes absolutely zero bullshit from anyone. She’s spunky and confident and outspoken and my fave HH of her’s is literally yelling into the crowds that MC is the cutest seriously what a fucking darling I’d die for her. Also her casual outfit is fucking lovely and she’s another babe with SO MUCH HAIR I LOVE IT.

Lucio is uhhhh….probably the trickiest. I love villains personally but I’m quite apprehensive about his upcoming route given the fact that he’s a villain whose actions have very VERY drastically affected the other LI’s as well as the MC in VERY negative and near permanent ways. I personally see him as barely redeemable so the idea of a romance is an odd one to me. I personally can’t see how an MC who is the apprentice could fall for him in any healthy way given these negative things.He imprisoned Asra’s parents and then told Asra that he’d had them executed (which even though he hadn’t, he’d still FULLY intended to do), he manipulated both Asra and Muriel into doing things neither had ever wanted and he’s like one of the MAIN reasons Muriel has such shitty trust issues and self image issues; he sees himself as a real monster for the things Lucio gleefully made him do. Forcing the plague on Julian is completely unforgivable and just going by these things alone without all the OTHER shit he’s done makes me wonder how in the hells a romance would work. Redemption depends entirely on the people whom he’s wronged so badly. I can’t see the other LI’s ever forgiving him no matter what the MC feels so I worry that his route will turn out…unbelievable? Unrealistic or forcing the ohter LI’s into ooc I suppose. But I’ll wait and see.NOW going by aesthetics I do really like his ridiculous gaudy look because it suits him. I like his dumb sense of playfulness and teasing. And the only redeeming quality he has in my personal opinion is his genuine love of animals.

I doubt I’ll play his route due to the fact that paid options are so stupidly expensive but I’ll catch up on it here on tumblr and from friends who will be playing it, just to see how it goes considering that Andy would NEVER hook up with him in their canon as the Apprentice, only ever in an AU and admittedly mainly cuz I like the mixed aesthetic/visual xD.

#asks #answered asks #the arcana #LONG AF ANSWER GOMEN #asra alnazar #nadia satrinava #julian devorak #muriel #portia devorak #lucio #the arcana game

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laissezferre · 6 years ago

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the terror (2018), last 3 eps

this is primarily for @corinthes, whom i’ve been yelling at for the past few days bc of this show. it got a bit lengthy and and i doubt you’d enjoy reading this from the chat box. spoilers beware for anyone curious enough.

i feel like episode 8 is the calm before the shitstorm that is ep 9-10 and it certainly has the feel of a filler episode, but i love it nonetheless. people talk! people have lines and are given the time to deliver them! francis and james have this important conversation even before the credits roll and that makes it all the more important. i love this scene; i see what you mean about how it belongs to a stage. it's just two guys having a heartfelt convo, beautifully acted. when the camera goes further and shows them standing apart, right in the middle of the frame, in this vast wasteland, looking at each other and having an understanding--gaawwd.

tobias's delivery of "i would like that very much" was so good! so vulnerable and open and hopeful. even now, he needs validation and it's important that he gets it from francis. and francis--having labeled the ship as a confessor--fills the ships' gap and becomes the confessor for everyone apparently. and at this point, he's reached god-like zen bc seriously he looks so put together after everyone's spilled their guts out to him. til the end, he dispenses "i forgive you" and "you did your best" and "you're a good lad" like pancakes. and he starts calling people by their first name too. and this, coming from a francis crozier who has known to be miserable and disagreeable, is called d e v e l o p m e n t. further on, when tells his lieutenants that if they got sick, he wouldn't leave them either, i thought "yes, i would die for you, i would follow you to hell and back". thank you, jared, for this performance.

i loved the almost-hanging scene too. it's a very looong scene and it's sad how so few shows actually take the time to have their characters talk! i can easily imagine this on a stage, complete with atmospheric smoke and sepia lighting. i knew that letter was gonna bite francis in the ass. i was waiting for it and hickey put down that card in the best time possible. hickey, you are a murdering, mutinous son of a bitch, but i also can't help but admire you.

ep 9 is like one sucker punch after another. god wants you to live, can we sleep, bridal carry, what can i do for you sir--this is... too much. special props tho to goodsir bc he has been through some shit. this show has added so many actors to my watch-for-next-projects list and that includes paul ready. he goes through such a transformation, so filled with hope and optimism and empathy and by the time they ask him to butcher gibson, he just looks so fucking done. we know he's going to die and it won't be by anyone else's hand. i love the part where hickey stabs gibson and they get into a struggle, but it’s less a physical struggle and more a battle of wills. can't believe they brought out the bits of glass from episode xX. his death was so beautifully shot. first, from where he sits still and looks in the direction of the camera while the tent canvass behind him thrashes wildly. that was hauntingly beautiful. then when he cuts his wrists but we can't see his face, only his spasms. and then when he pictures the flowers and shells. that broke me. he was a science man to the death.

i have words for jopson but i will reserve them for ep 10.

francis gave a service for james but they did it alone. ok then! fuck me up some more! this, plus blankly's revelation that he's gonna die soon, chips at francis' state of zen and we see him break a bit. i love how his voice breaks in "why didnt you say aything?!" and then they're laughing and crying at the same time and yeah, there is no toxic masculity in this murderland, just a whole lot of love.

this show like oprah giving out prizes. "you get a monologue! and you get a monologue! and you get a monologue!" and i love it! hodgson and tover are relatively minor characters but they are given time to speak up, and despite their shitty actions, you can't help but empathize. and their breakdowns aren't the same either. goodsir breathes heavily, hodgson is still and haunted, tover hugs himself and shudders, and they all do it so well! how is everyone in this show so good?? jared did mention that most of the cast was theater-trained so i guess that played a part.

i have to tell you that before bingeing the last 3 eps i watched almost all the terror crack videos on youtube, so these last eps were, though still heartbreaking, were also a bit funny for me, in an absurd kind of way. when james fires the rocket, i can hear "rocketman" in the background. when goodsir mixes the poison, i almost yelled "chemistry time!". it's just... i needed to make fun of it or i wouldn't surive the heartbreak. which leads me to:

jopsoooooonnn! the best boi! the goodest boi! the most loyal boi who did no wrong! apart from his death, what's more heartbreaking is that he thought crozier left him. he didn't know that the captain was abducted so he thought he's been deliberately abandoned. his hallucination reduced me to tears. he was probably starving to death and here was all this food but no, he! just! wanted! his! captain! he sees the captain in his best form--well kempt, alert, emphatic--and at the end of it, his captain is turned away from him. fuck me up seven ways to sunday. i desperately want bts pics from this scene bc the eeriness of having a full dining table in the wastes must be jarring.

little doesn't get enough credit, because while he did mess up, his loyalty is also something to be admired. they were hungry and sick and dying--they could very well have just kept on south but he was still insistent to save francis. "you would leave our captain with that devil of a man?" yes, little, you did your best. you deserved to die last.

if tunbaaq is meant to be a metaphor for nature and balance, it's absolutely fitting how it's defeated by lead and chemical poison. ultimately, how we've used technology and industrialization kills the environment--or at least that's how i read it.

i really have to applaud adam nagaitis for his performance here and i do think he deserves top billing as much as the lead cast. by the end of it, he draws as much screen time as crozier and you can even say that he holds the last 2-3 eps together. and you genuinely fucking hate his character. were those really james' boots he was wearing? does that mean they dug him up and looted him? that unforgiveable swine, may he rot in hell, but gawwd adam pulled it off well.

i've been debating with myself if it was kinder and more poetic to have crozier die at the end so that he wouldn't have to grieve or go through survivor's guilt, but for my own mental health, i'm glad he survived. it's a small mercy but i'm glad he got to live. i'm glad he got to see what happened to his men, that he saw jopson one final time, and little too. his survival also sends the message that the one most willing to adapt (and respect the culture) will survive. he tries to follow silna but stops when the chief says "it's just how we do things". he understands and he lets it go. he learns the language and the way of life--and he lives.

i've watched featurettes and interviews for this series and from there you can really see that this show was a labor of love. it was a product of collaboration, research, open-mindedness, and a solid cast and crew. you can have all the special effects, all the expensive costumes, but at the core of it, what makes a good story is Dialogue. i can honestly say that it's one of the best scripts this decade has ever produced. the showrunners set out to tell a story and they did it to the best of their ability. i'll be coming back to this series for the next few months and rewatching it many times over.

thank u, thank u, thank u for introducing this to me. now come yell at me back

#the terror #the terror amc #thoughts #i have feeling--a lot of them

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softgrungeprophet · 6 years ago

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it’s that time again. time for me to be annoyed/frustrated at the comics that came in the 20-teens that simultaneously responded directly to the 2000s, followed in the 2000s’ continuation, but completely glossed over and ignored the very serious topics that were brought up. and then we get the fucking 2018 run which does NEITHER and just seeks to make it worse for shock value without being even remotely thoughtful about anything it does! wow.

we could have had some really interesting growth for eddie and the symbiote’s relationship by honestly addressing things like eddie’s illness, hypocrisy as anti-venom, his status as a victim of abuse, and so on...

of course i know if i say “eddie is a victim” people will get hissy but like.... i’m not saying he’s an innocent blameless baby who was manipulated into being the weirdo he is... i’m just saying... he’s a victim of abuse. he’s been taken advantage of a lot. almost any help he’s received has required some kind of reciprocation.

he’s a shithead and he went off the deep-end after new ways to die because remender’s version of eddie fucking sucks, he’s smug and weird and violent, and also he’s been neglected and tortured and abused and experimented on and he needs therapy and blah blah blah

he’s also not some fuckin accidental drunk driver who was hit into thinking he’s innocent. that’s so fucking--jeez. everything about these retcons donny has been doing miss the point even more than the comics he says he loves so much. it’s wild. like i don’t like new ways to die OR new ways to live, remender’s run was okay but i hated the way he wrote eddie, marvel knights spider-man just sucks in general, the hunger 03 also sucks, but like they do feed into each other in a way that.... sort of makes sense....

i just wish there was a way any of the comics would have said, “hey look there are some ways in which eddie is a victim but there are also some ways in which he needs to take responsibility for his actions”

but that kind of nuanced take is impossible for the way these comics are put out and canceled and retconned and so on forever.. it’s so ... ugh.....

the hunger 03 sucks... it also influenced over a decades’ worth of Venom comics including costa’s in its own weird way.... and i just wish we could simultaneously be like, Yes the symbiote is not inherently evil or corrupting but Also it did abuse Eddie, and Yes Eddie has been treated poorly for a great deal of his life and Also is a motherfucker who needs to be held responsible for his actions.

Is this hypocritical to be like, “can we address the 2000s” while also saying “2018 run is not valid”

in my defense even the shitty 2000s were like a continuity and didn’t try to fully retcon every single aspect of venom lore that ever existed (tho it sure did plenty of retconning....) whereas the current run... is doing exactly that....

of course this goddamn run will probably also influence the following comics unless the next writers retcon the retcons or like, ignore it and it gets put into its own earth or something. idk. like no one really counts dark origin right? and that works cause it also had a negligible influence on the rest of the comics. but like, the bad hunger had a very lasting impact on the comics. so i guess we just hope that donny cates, despite currently selling super well, does not actually influence any of the comics that come after?

i don’t fuckin know. i just think it kind of sucks that like “eddie was abused” is something that gets used as either a “lol no that never happened and if you talk about it you hate the symbiote” or else an excuse to demonize the symbiote even after its own character growth arcs in the apparently supremely unpopular gotg and space knight stuff... lol

maybe if every fucking series from 2013 to 2016 (minus costa which is honestly more 2017) didn’t get canned we could have gotten more. like honestly, 2016′s Carnage--for all its flaws--seemed like it had something to say about Eddie as a character, about his flaws and so on, and I gotta wonder where that was going. It flat out says “Venom didn’t make Eddie Brock a bastard” so like? But then at the same time all of the symbiotes in that series were completely silent so? I don’t even know.

Cullen Bunn was clearly going somewhere too but I have no idea where other than “symbiote is alive but has trouble communicating” and “eddie is coming down from his murder spree as he realizes flash thompson is in fact helping people as agent venom”

the two fit together in a very strangely complementary way. sometimes i gotta wonder about a universe in which those two comics in particular ran concurrently to address venom, flash, toxin, and eddie’s many issues. but toxin’s probably gone... though in my heart they are with jubulile and her mom in south africa, learning what it’s like to be part of a loving family...

man. the resigned “Okay.” at the end of twav...... twav good imo.

anyway

i don’t even know what the point of this is. i’m all over the place in this post. it’s frustrating that donny has made it kinda impossible to bring up eddie’s victimhood without like... qualifying it to the ends of the earth to clarify that you don’t think he’s some kind of pure cinnamon roll who’s been dreadfully manipulated for 12 years....

I feel like I’m not making any sense!!! Words are hard.

I feel like I’ve kinda been avoiding writing about the symbiote though in part because it’s hard for me to balance that many characters and in part because of Donny’s stupid bullshit, which is dumb as fuck but I guess that’s what he wanted huh!!!! Need to read Lethal Protector to cleanse my palate but it’s taking forever to get it from the library because they only have one copy.

ugh

The symbiote is not an evil creature like he wants everyone to think... goddammit.... but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t carefully address both its and Eddie’s mistakes without fabricating new different mistakes to obscure the previous ones. Or whatever. Fuckin I don’t know lol the entirety of the continuity is just a bunch of bullshit. 80s-90s continuity largely separate from 2000-20...15ish continuity largely separate AGAIN from the 2016 continuity yet also directly tied to it, against completely separated from the 2018 continuity which is off saying “fuck you” to literally every venom writer to ever exist since Eddie’s conception, ironically including the guy who wrote the cursed hunger

What am I trying to say! I don’t know! i feel like a broken record. There’s a lot of empty space between Agent Venom and 2016 that was never filled! also between 2016 and 2018 lmfao.

Donny “everything went wrong and I’m not going to explain how other than ‘God’ and ‘Eddie lost his job cause screaming symbiote’“ Cates really pullin some shit. what do you mean eddie tends to work toward solving his own problems EVEN WHILE DYING. waid’s mini-story in NWTD showed that eddie, despite being sad and sick and exhausted was still like.... eddie, stubbornly searching out his own solutions and getting angry. ofc i’m not sure how well it succeeded at parts. the comics in those days were still pretty steeped in the weird symbiote hallucinations that it was never clear if they were meant to be caused by the symbiote or just eddie’s sick brain. like the Last Temptation. I have a love-hate relationship with those two issues... I think they’re pretty well-done but also something about them just rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway back to Cates: it’s not like there wasn’t space for a spiral after FH or anything. You could have really dug into Eddie and the symbiote’s insecurities wrt family and parenting. but nah. let’s just make it so there’s a SECRET CHILD, and oh the pre-established sibling? we could have dug into her and made her a real character. but no, she doesn’t exist, women are either fake or dead or violated.

asshole.

but again like..... the 03 hunger, cursed and bad... like... it’s still workable. you can work with the corrupting forces, the addiction metaphor (on the SYMBIOTE’S part, with adrenaline) and the intense codependency, and still have them move on and into a healthier-by-comparison relationship.

but cates’ run is like... much harder to recover from if it has as lasting of an effect, because it leaves no part untouched, and goes beyond “normal” abuse into really weird unforgiveable territory... like the canon of that comic is the canon in which everything has been completely changed into something unrecognizable.

i joke about my AUs being unrecognizable because, visually at least, they WOULD be unrecognizable for most Venom fans, but the comics inform them as characters a lot in the stories i write in those AUs, from the 96 good hunger, to the 03 bad hunger, to space knight to venom inc, and so on. But donny cates really is out here essentially reverse-engineering retcons to justify his characterizations.

barely related: the way eddie was raised and the way he coped by overachieving and so on and so forth makes me think he would have--despite presumably gaining a great deal of confidence in college once out of his father’s home--been really vulnerable to being taken advantage of by like, other students or teachers, but idk how exactly to articulate what i mean like... uh... not even that he WAS taken advantage of but that his need for validation would have left him open to it... i guess??

that’s got pretty much nothing to do with this post though but kinda ties into what i’ve said before about how i think eddie was a withdrawn and isolated adolescent who only opened up in college. why i disagree with donny’s retcon for that reason in addition to other reasons--the way he’d been shown to be bullied as a kid in previous comics, as well as the lack of history of alcoholism, the clarification in lethal protector that carl wasn’t physical, so on and so forth.

again that’s not related to this post really... and it’s like, a good 50% headcanon, but it makes sense in my head as something that fits his history?? i guess?

#nadia reads venom #this is way too fuckin long what am i even talking about anymore i don't know #long post #this is basically half of what i think about 24/7 #sometimes u just gotta barf out a bunch of words #to organize your thoughts #now... did i succeed in organizing my thoughts? never.

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areyoudoingthis · 3 years ago

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as a person in the education sector (i think? lemme know if im wrong') u probably hav more succint thoughts on this topic but snape as a character will always read weird bc jk justified later shitty things abt him but did not justify the basic shitty things about him. like yea he was ultimately led down the magical alt right pipeline so we cant blame him for that but we can blame him for terrorising his students and she did not do anything to justify this. if anything she made it worse with the backstory bc now its this grown man terrorising a child for his parents shitty actions, parelleling his relationship with his father but worse because he knows what this feels like and yet repeats it time and time again

asad you've asked me the question that can get me talking for an entire year, so sorry if this gets long. and this is another one of the reasons i believe that never speaking of hp again will inevitably be harmful, but still tw to anyone who understandably doesn't want to hear about it

yes, I'm a teacher. and as a teacher i believe that above all censorship is never the right answer. you can't make a thing disappear just because you don't like it, and helping kids (I'm thinking about my kids right now, but all kids) process the literature that they encounter is the best way we can help them. yes hp is problematic in countless different ways, and i will always believe that talking about them is the best thing we can do

that said, I've hated snape since i was 11 and first read the books. i hated him because he was mean to harry and neville, and then i hated him because be was racist, and then i hated him because he thought lily belonged to him and he could do whatever he wanted to and with her, to the point of trading her husband and son's lives for hers and completely erasing her free will

and then i became a teacher, and my hate for snape multiplied to the infinite degree. the thing is, being a teacher taught me that kids who become violent are often victims of violence at home themselves, and it's 100% my responsibility and the school's responsibility to help however we can. sometimes you do everything you can and you still can't help them, because we live in a shitty system where you can't just take a kid from their parents. other times no one notices (some teachers and schools suck.)

and then that kid grows up to be an adult and turns that violence back on the world. being a teacher taught me to understand that a person can be both a victim and a victimary, but as an adult their position and their responsibility change. especially if that adult works with minors. you see, what's really broke in this case is that hogwarts is the furthest thing from how a school should work. but other than dumbledore being the least qualified person to run a school full of literal children, snape is a monster. he is. he abused those kids without a smidgen if remorse. he failed at his responsibilities in every way he could. I don't believe anyone led him anywhere, he went willingly. lots of people are victims of violence as kids and don't grow up to be monsters, they make better choices once they can. especially given the chances snape was given to change and with the full support network he could have had at hogwarts if he'd wanted it

but on top of his terrible personality that he never felt any need to change (he was still racist long after lily died, he chose to think of his best friend as inferior just because of who her parents were), he was a teacher. you have a responsibility to those kids. when they walk into your classroom, they become a little bit your kids, and they're minors in your care. they way he treated them is unforgivable. don't work as a teacher if you have unresolved childhood issues and don't like kids. they'll be looking to you for gidance and understanding, and the bare minimum you're obligated to give them is respect

so yeah, snape is pretty much unforgivable from my point of view. i can understand where he came from as a person, i can even feel compassion for that, but nothing justifies the bad choices he decided to make as an adult, the way that he never thought there was anything he needed to change about himself, or the fact that he chose to work as a teacher when that was the last thing he should have been doing

#and don't tell me he was protecting harry #because there are many ways to harm a kid #and he was actively harming him in like 100 of those #saving his life a couple of times doesn't erase that #or make him a good person #hp tw #hp

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serenephenix · 7 years ago

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“If I could just show you...”

Finally finished the first season of “Camp Camp” while watching it on breaks. Enjoyed it a lot!

And the only evening where I have a bit of spare time what do I do? Write fanfic for this new show I discovered.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

If I could just show you…

[Fandom]: Camp Camp (season 1 finale)

[Rating]: Gen

[Genre]: emotional hurt, character introspection

[Word count]: 1.900

[Warning]: mention of suicidal ideation, child neglect

[Status]: completed

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David’s aggressively positive outlook on life was hard-earned.

It had to be, seeing as what he had faced before becoming a counselor at Camp Campbell had required him to adopt a cheery attitude, unless he wanted to face the facts and… make sure he no longer had to deal with reality. Permanently.

He gasped as he tried readjusting his pillow, the headache and stiff muscles in his neck making themselves more prominent than they had to be. He could have done without the slight concussion, but somehow he could not regret it in the slightest. After all, his accident had spurred the campers, the quartermaster, even Gwen into action. Something he never would have believed possible with how fast everything had spiraled out of control and gone downhill today.

It had been poor planning on his part - that much he could admit - and maybe Max was right about needing to revise the activity and depiction of the Natives altogether (as Max had hissed at him over roasting marshmallows after putting out most of the rampant fire). Still, the bonfire had been pretty enjoyable. And there hadn’t been too many burns that needed treating! Huuuge success in David’s book!

David allowed a quiet smile to pull at his lips as he listened to Gwen’s snores on the other side of the room divider – the only piece of furniture in their cabin that had not been provided when David had first let his small bag fall to the ground as he took in his new home. But he had felt it necessary once Gwen had joined him, and while she may have rolled her eyes at his ‘exaggerated concern about privacy and modesty’, David was sure he had not imagined the slightly grateful glint in her eyes the day he drove to town to purchase it.

The same town he had taken Max, Nikki and Neil on an unplanned joyride to. He had to hand it to them – they were a brave, adventurous little bunch.

Much braver than he had been at their age.

While he could not see the pictures on it from this angle or in this poor lighting, David made out the frame of the wooden memory board hanging just beside the illuminated window.

The pictures of the kids and him, as well as those of his own stay here at Camp Campbell. Looking at them and at his bright smile, it was hard to associate the grinning kid with curious eyes to a home than had been less than nurturing.

David remembered how people, people he’d like to call ‘friends’ tentatively in his own head, had repeatedly told him it was not just a lack of nurturing.

Shitty parenting. Neglect. Abuse.

Those were the words they had attributed to David’s home situation. Even today, David was reluctant to call it abuse. Abuse was a harsh word. A heavy accusation. One that he really did not want to apply to his family.

The thin blanket was coarse as he twiddled it between his fingers nervously, trying to keep his heart from speeding up involuntarily.

His family was not made up of bad people. David was convinced of that. At least, not the kind of bad people that murdered or participated in illegal activities to get rich at the expense of others.

His parents were good people. His mother was always kind and helpful to the folks in their town. She was there to lend them an ear and good advice, engaged herself in a lot of activities to help the community become a better place. His father was ambitious and focused. Any project entrusted to him was sure to be finished surely and to almost perfection.

His parents were good people. It wasn’t their fault they had gotten a kid unplanned, and it wasn’t their fault either that David did not want to follow in their footsteps, take over the family business. It wasn’t their fault David was not the most gifted child, or the strongest, or most ingenious, or the most charismatic.

And neither was it David’s fault for not being any of those things. If he repeated that mantra long enough, he might start getting some precious air again, and hopefully stop panicking. He did not want to wake Gwen up, not when she had worked so hard.

Because that was also something David had going for himself: he was hardworking and he was patient. And it had paid off today!

Even if Max’s words had stung. A lot. A lot more than the words of a ten-year-old should.

And David had meant it. He was not blind, and maybe not as dumb as most people liked to believe -himself included.

Pretending only could get you so far. But so did giving up before really trying.

There were a lot of instances in his life where David could have given up. He soldiered through most of those but he still does regret having dropped out of high school in his junior year. Sometimes he wonders if he could have made it. Hey, maybe he might have even made it as far as college, gotten a “useless” degree like Gwen. But a degree nonetheless.

But he would never know, just as he would never know if it would have been the wrong decision in the end. There had been a reason after all why he had quitted, why he had left not only his education but also his home behind.

His parents weren’t bad people. But they were demanding, they were reserved, and perfectionist, and pretty unforgiving.

His parents were not bad people, but they had been, without any doubt, bad parents to a kid like David.

He knew it was silly, but even just the memory of his father’s disappointed look at his average grades or the sting of a slap he got whenever his whining grated on his mother’s already frayed nerves, was enough to make the room feel as if the temperature had dropped several degrees.

Middle school had stressed him out to the point of having to fight himself not to throw up his meals at every chance he got. There had not been any friends he could have counted on picking him up; not when he had been the laughing stock in the first place.

His overly positive attitude had not been all too charming to his fellow pre-teens even back then. In fact, a lot of his interactions with them were not too dissimilar to the ones he was having with some of the kids here at camp. But David had always needed to look at the good things in his everyday life.

It was what had soothed over comments about his lack of taste in fashion from his mother, or the belligerent sighs coming from his father when he did not understand his explanation to a complicated arithmetical problem. It had made it easier to forget when his mother told him, almost absentmindedly as she checked her e-mails, that he probably did not have friends because he was a boring person to be around. It had allowed him to not cry every time his father would scrutinize him, his expression close to pitying when it came to David’s failed attempts to impress him with something he had made with his own two hands.

David felt his breath hitch and his eyes itching something fiercely. Stupid concussion. It was messing with his head, the neat compartmentalizing he had perfected over the years, making every thought spill out like clothes from an overturned dresser.

He wiped his nose on a small corner of his blanket, too sore to even attempt reaching for the nightstand and the package of handkerchiefs stored in its drawer.

But maybe it was not only the concussion.

Maybe it had been the past few days that had hit a little too close to home for his comfort.

Camp Campbell had been his safe space the moment he had arrived here as a kid, about the same age as most of those that were here right now. It was a remote place, far away from everything David had known and anyone that could possibly know him.

It had been a reprieve, from expectations he could not meet. Here, amidst nature and other youths enjoying doing practical work, David had found a place where he fit; where people actually did enjoy his company specifically because he was undemanding and positive no matter the circumstances.

And he had enjoyed it for the entirety of the four stays his parents had allowed, until they had considered him too old to join a summer camp anymore.

Arguing with them, David had learned, would not lead to anything. So, he had accepted. That had not made the cold spot in his chest any smaller or any less crushing.

Because wherein lay the truth: David had always wanted to be here, in this camp.

This was David’s home. A place where he had found happiness and a sense of belonging.

And maybe Max was right in his observation that David’s wish to recreate these same feelings for these kids was both naïve and maybe a little presumptuous.

Because not everyone was like him. The majority of these kids, maybe all of them, were here because their parents had wanted them to enjoy their passion: whether that was music, or acting, or science, or simply the outdoors. And Nurf, well, his mother had only had the best in mind for his future. There was nothing reproachable about that.

And it hurt, in a very primal way, that the only thing that made David feel happy and worthwhile was being brushed off or ridiculed on a regular basis. That every conviction and virtue he held close to his heart, was losing its meaning in a world that was becoming more desensitized and apathetic and individualistic with each year.

But as he’d told Max in the pouring rain, with as much conviction as when he had shaken off his father’s grip on his arm in the closing bus door, someone has to care.

Someone has to take charge, and if that someone had to be David he would gladly rise to the challenge. Because David had learned nobody would hand him his happiness on a silver platter. It was up to him to build his own happiness.

The snort he let out jarred his head, making him mumble noiselessly in distress at the pain.

Maybe he should add stubborn to his list of qualities. Then that’d make three in total. Not too shabby, all things considered.

A groan came from the other side of the room, followed by a voice heavy with exhaustion.

“David, you still alive? God, please be still alive. I can’t handle the campers all on my own.”

He decided it was best to not chuckle, but the humor was not lost in his reply.

“No worries, Gwen. Just woke myself up sneezing. I’m fine.”

He wanted to believe that the drowsy answer he got was an “Okay” but he could not be entirely sure. Soon enough, soft snores filled the space between them again, the first pitter patter of another oncoming downpour joining in a short while later.

David watched as the raindrops drew fine lines against the glass of the window.

He was asleep before he even noticed himself drifting off.

#camp camp #cc david #cc gwen #cc max #cc nikki #cc neil #child neglect #i had a loooooooooooooooooooot of feelings after that s1 finale #Serene writes #fanfic #completed

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